Dressed to Kill
by Nitrobot
Summary: What happens when Strongarm encounters Life Fibers, Windblade turns out to be a secret agent for the worst mother in the galaxy, and Fixit is a lot more than just a prisoner babysitter? Talking armour, convoluted galactic quests and killer stripper poles happen. Also Thunderhoof's there for some reason. [Kill La Kill/RID fusion, Strongarm centered fic with StrongSwipe]
1. Why Do The Aliens Mock Me?

Even though the Alchemor was more useful as a giant paperweight than a ship, Fixit still gave himself the duty of maintaining it; calibrating the non-functional weapons, testing the door controls, even trying to fire up the defense systems one desperate time, just in case they worked.

But mostly he just cleaned. Running a brush across the walls, blowing dirt from the floors to the gutters at either side of the lonely corridors as he hummed and trundled down them. Dust led to rust, and rust led to sparks being burst. Or something like that. His maintenance training was always insistent about proper cleaning regimes.

He rounded the first sector of empty cells, peering into each one and half-expecting to see a Decepticon slumbering away inside. The second sector, reserved for the more dangerous criminals, proved just as thankfully barren. He shook his brush, dislodging a shower of metal flakes and dirt from the bristles, before making his way back to the entrance and rolling past a red glow flushing the east corridor-

And then rolling right back to squint at it. A red glow, on a ship with no working generator? That wasn't normal. It couldn't have been a faulty warning light; the glow was too faint, too... natural, almost pulsing along the walls. In the most peculiar way, it was familiar.

This is where a smart mech might have commed for someone else much better equipped to deal with weird, possibly Decepticon-involved, almost certainly deadly, lights from nowhere. Someone who wasn't the size of the average bot's leg. Fixit was usually a smart mech. Even so, his comm unit remained switched off. His wheels whirred, spinning grooves into the floor as safety protocols blaring across his processor held him back. He switched those off as well, zooming off into the artificial kindle of red before he could have even more second and third thoughts about it. The luminance sparked into a gentle blaze on his optics the closer he got, as if his vision was filtered only through red. He couldn't help but think if that was how Decepticons saw everything.

The end of the corridor branched off in two directions, one burning like a fire without heat to scald him. Fixit stopped just short of the intersection, almost falling flat on his faceplate from his momentum. Steadying himself with shaky vents, he cast a look down the safe corridor to his right, leading into the long-ago plundered fuel storage room. A dead end. His only options were to go back... or throw himself into whatever was making its mark on the walls.

The glow was beckoning him more than the safety behind him. He was the steward of the ship, and it was his duty to investigate anything strange. It was the only thing he was good for around here, anyway.

Testing his drill, firing up his shock prod and flooding his vents with air, Fixit shuttered his optics and propelled himself into the left corridor. The light washed over him, forced his optics open again as they scanned every inch of the way ahead. The glow didn't continue past a single point just in front of him, lying on the floor...

A bundle of... strings?

That was what he thought, until they started floating towards him. Then the familiarity became a realisation crushing his processor.

"Oh, no." His whisper floated out to meet the fibers, only spurring them onwards even more.

"Oh _no no nonono_ -" Engines stalling and wheels slipping against the ground, Fixit only made it as far as the intersection before the strings latched on, sucked into his armour like it was peppered with black holes. They dug deep into his systems, coiling around his circuits and stitching themselves into his processor. It wasn't so much painful as it was... distressing, long dormant parts of himself suddenly lurching awake. The edges of his optics still burned red when they finally opened, staring up at the ceiling. By the time he picked himself up off his back, the fibers had fully infused themselves and prickled with life along his nerve nodes.

Either Life Fibers had been following him for centuries, or he had the most impossible odds of bad luck this side of the galaxy. How long had they been on the Alchemor, lying in wait for him? What were they doing on Earth? Did the planet have any more lurking around corners?

"Fixit?"

That was a much easier question to answer.  
"I-I'm here, ma'am," Fixit called out, frantically rolling down back down the corridor even with the red glow behind him gone. He could hear Strongarm walking down the second sector foyer just a few walls away, and when he emerged from the utility hallway maze he almost fell right in front of her.  
Strongarm quirked an eyeridge, debating over offering a servo to him. "What're you doing in there?" She nodded to where he just popped out from.  
Fixit brushed his armour down, ignoring the lingering sting of the fibers phasing through him, and gave a sheepish look upwards. "Well... even if the ship's in pieces, I'm still its caretaker."

Strongarm kept her eyeridges raised, glancing around behind him. "Well, if you're busy, I'll just-"

"No, no, I'm... pretty much done here." Fixit wasn't overeager to have himself swarmed by whatever else was lurking ahead. His wheels carried him to Strongarm's side, veering her attention away from the corridor. "Did you need something, ma'am?"  
Just as he hoped, Strongarm's gaze followed him with her back to the utility sector. "Didn't you hear? We've got a new arrival."

"Another one?" They had their servos full enough with all the escaped Decepticons; all the new ones attracted to the chaos wasn't helping them. Even if they were another Autobot, there was no guarantee to how useful they'd be.

Strongarm seemed to share the borders of his annoyance. "Yep. Cybertron can spare all the soldiers in the universe yet they won't send over just one thermal cannon to even out the odds around here." She rolled her optics, making way for the ship's exit with a beckoning servo. "Come on, she's waiting in the scrapyard with the rest of the team."

Fixit trundled along, unsure what to feel now that the fibers had faded completely into him. "So, the new one... is she a friendly?"

Strongarm knew what he meant by 'friendly'- someone who wouldn't be more trouble than they were worth. If there was one thing the Autobots didn't need, it was another Drift. "Well... she's sure trying to _act_ like one." Her tone seeped skepticism, and a healthy dose of bitterness at its edges. "Calls herself Windblade, AKA 'the poster child of Primus himself'!" She gave the last title in mock awe with a flourish of her servos.

"You don't sound too thrilled to meet her, ma'am," Fixit said.

Strongarm snorted, putting a well-practiced scowl on. "Trust me, you'll know why when you see her. Unless you turn into Sideswipe, that is, and start falling over your own damn ped-" Her legs and vocaliser stopped short before she gave a guilty look down at the Minicon. "Sorry, wheels, I mean."

Fixit shrugged, a silent ' _don't worry about it',_ but Strongarm only stared more intensely down at him.

"...Are you feeling alright?" she asked.  
He could almost hear his spark starting to pound in his audios. "A-as good as I've ever been," he stuttered with a hasty smile.

Strongarm narrowed her optics."It's just... you're kinda _glowing_. And your optics look a lot brighter than usual..."

Fixit forced himself away from nervous laughter- making someone sound ridiculous only worked when that someone had a faulty processor. "Must be the dark playing ticks- uh, _tricks_ ," he suggested, praying it would also hide the coolant starting to bead on his supposedly glowing frame. And here he was thinking the fibers had completely disappeared...

Strongarm quirked an eyeridge, flicking her optics up and down, before finally accepting it with a shrug. "Makes sense." She picked herself back up and continued toward the exit, not seeing the relief shuddering through Fixit's shoulders or hearing the whisper of regret hissing out of his vents.

"I thought I'd left you behind."

Sounds rippled across his audios, a questioning and muffled chorus across eons. Fixit knew what they were asking him, and felt his drill tighten by his side.

"You know why." He turned his back on anything else they had to say, following Strongarm back to the new life he'd tried to carve for himself for so long.


	2. The Glitch Revealed

"Strongarm, there you are!" Bumblebee called out, only noticing Fixit when edged out from behind the femme. Strongarm approached her leader, only barely avoiding a sour stare over to where everyone was worshiping the new arrival.

"Listen, I was thinking you and Sideswipe could give Windblade a tour of the area," Bumblebee went on, missing how her optics darkened at the suggestion. "Show her where all the main landmarks are, fill her in on the Decepticon situation, that kinda thing."

Strongarm's lips tightened, her optics finally relenting to a hard glare at the mingle of crimson plating some way behind Bee. "I see Sideswipe is still giving her the 'examination'," she said, biting each word as it came out.

Again, Bumblebee overlooked her acidity and followed her optics over with a shrug. "Maybe reds like to stick together."

Strongarm knitted her eyeridges together, crossing her servos over with no mind to looking childish. "More like _punks_ like to stick together," she huffed.

Bumblebee turned back to her, finally taking notice of her attitude with a frown. "There's nothing wrong with being jealous, Strongarm, but don't take it out on Sides, alright?"

Strongarm's resent dissolved in a bubbling cloud of defensiveness covering her faceplate. "I am _not_ jealo-" She cut herself off in a groan, pressing a hand to her forehelm as the processor behind it started to ache. "He's welcome to do whatever he fragging likes." With heavy servos by her sides, she started to push past Bee. "No protoform off my back."

"Well, at least be nice to Windblade," Bumblebee asked, prompting her to look over her shoulder at his turbopuppy optics. "Please?"

His plea had a spectacularly minimal effect on Strongarm's mood. "Oh, I'll be on my best behavior, sir. But, if say _Grimlock_ ended up accidentally stepping on her, well, that wouldn't be my fault." She was only half-joking and they both knew it. She hefted her irritation on her shoulders and glanced around. "Come on, Fixit, let's get this over wi-"

The rust-brown plating was hard to see against the scrapyard background, but she eventually picked the strangely-bright outline out when electricity prickled along it, and a very small yelp caught in her audios.

"Fixit, were you _shocking_ yourself?" she asked, looking down at his guilty gaze and his prod-servo still sparking against his other arm.  
"Just... resetting a circuit shortage!" he explained with a fringe of nervous laughter. "It's gondala now- _gone_ , I-I mean." The laughter increased tenfold, not helping the pounding in Strongarm's helm. She rubbed at it again with a sigh.

"Do me a favour, Fixit. Keep that thing turned on and use it if Windblade tries to shake your servo." She was headed for the source of the ache herself before Fixit had time to decide whether she was serious or not.

Kicking up dirt with every step, Strongarm didn't put herself in a rush to make everyone's new favourite messiah's acquaintance again. Even so, she was in distance of the other Autobots in less than a klick with Fixit following behind.

"Hey, Strongarm!" Grimlock bellowed, waving over at her with the enthusiasm of an overcharged sparkling. "Windblade was talking about what Primus sounds like!" He hunched over and placed a hand near his mouth as if shielding it from view, his voice lowered to a very poor whisper. "I always thought he sounded like a _reaaaally_ cranky grandsire."

Strongarm couldn't stop a smile breaking her bitter mask, but it only lasted for as long as it took for her to notice Sideswipe looking at Windblade like she was Optimus reborn. The punch to get his attention was less friendly and more 'stop being a fragging embarrassment'.

"Ow!" Sideswipe hissed and rubbed his servo plating. "What the Pi-oh, there you are." His anger sizzled out when he saw the blue of Strongarm's biolights glaring at him. Strongarm would have preferred the anger to the complete neutralness he regarded her with, as if he didn't have any emotion left to waste.

"Sorry to pull you away from yet another _riveting_ story, I'm sure." She crossed her servos over again, tilting her helm to Windblade beside him. "Bumblebee wants us to show Windblade around."

Sideswipe gave a wide-optic-raised-eyeridge look that Strongarm really wanted to punch, "Uh, actually..." He rubbed a hand behind his helm crest, still glancing aside at Windblade who didn't seem to even be listening. "We were just talking about taking a patrol ourselves." Strongarm was expecting that before it even came out, yet the urge to punch still increased dramatically as Sideswipe's mouth still rammed on. "I was gonna show her around the forest and-"

"Is that... a Minicon?" Windblade interrupted, peds carrying her past Sides' as she stared beyond Strongarm at where Fixit milled near Grimlock. Sides' train of thought had crashed, from his flickering optics and slight pout at not being in the spotlight of attention. It took several nanoklicks for it to get itself back on track, and by then Windblade was out of his reach.

"Oh, yeah, that's Fixit," he said with a heavy hint of dismissal. "He came with the hoard of unleashed Decepticons. Drift also has his own two, but... he's a little protective of them."

Windblade only acknowledged him with a hum, slowly approaching Fixit and making Strongarm tense with every step. "I've... never seen one of them before."

She called herself a messenger of Primus, and she didn't even know all of his children? Strongarm didn't know if she should feel smug at proof towards Windblade not actually knowing everything, or unease at how intensely she looked at Fixit. Strongarm had never seen a gestalt before, but that didn't mean she'd look like an Insecticon on the hunt if she ever met one.

Fixit didn't seem to relish the attention either, and not just from Strongarm's warnings about Windblade. Even so, he cleared his vocaliser and slowly rolled forward, stretching his drill out towards her in the closest thing to a handshake he could manage.

"Nice to meet you, ma'- _GAAAH!_ " Instead of reaching for his servo, Windblade grabbed Fixit's waist and lifted him up as if he was a sack of scrap parts. The move was so sudden, a lightening strike of red and black plating, that Windblade had disappeared behind a valley of junk piles by the time Strongarm's blasters deployed.

As expected, Sideswipe didn't even have his out, instead calling after her in a plea of confusion. "Windblade, what the... what are you doing!?"

A chorus of mad giggles answered him from behind a stack of barren car chassis'. "Proving that you're all even dumber than we thought!"

Strongarm was already ordering the pursuit after her, with no time to ask questions. Fixit's cries for help left a trail for her and Grimlock to follow, with the Dinobot barreling through the heaps as if they were paper. The metal carnage eliminated the maze of junk, but it still took precious nanoklicks to scale it all and find Windblade when she finally stopped her chase; absolutely mad, clutching a squirming Fixit in her servos, pinning his drill uselessly against her chestplates as she tapped a digit to the side of her helm.

"I have the armour, mistress. My co-ordinates are 583-"

Fixit's optics locked onto Strongarm barreling towards him, and he managed to orient his prod against part of Windblade's plating. A shock charred through the armour and sent him to the ground with a shrill shriek of pain above him.

"You little _glitch!_ " With her face twisted even uglier than usual, Windblade's voice had gone up several octaves, and not just from the electricity still sparkling along her servo. Glancing wildly, Fixit thought he saw pink underneath the burned crimson before he found enough sense to start getting himself away from her.

"You completely ruined my-!" Windblade's whine was silenced very forcefully by a fist slamming in her mouth, knocking her on her back and skidding across the ground.

"Primus knows, I've been waiting to do that," Strongarm sighed through an overdue grin, brushing her knuckles off on her chestplates.

Sideswipe had finally caught up with them, doubled over with vents heaving. "You just... punched his prophet... I think he knows _that_ pretty well." He kept himself upright with servos on his knees, but his exhaustion didn't convince Strongarm to lighten her glare.

"Oh, lay off it, Sides, it was obvious she was full of slag from the very beginning." She nodded to Grimlock and then to where Windblade was twitching in the dirt, leaving him to properly detain her. Then she knelt down to Fixit's level with a look that was one part worry and two parts confusion.

"Are you alright, Fixit?" she asked, flicking a clump of dirt clinging to the top of his helm.

His optics had dimmed and his frame still shivered slightly, but he smiled at her. "F-Fine... I'm fine." He didn't seem capable of saying much more- Primus knew how badly his vocaliser must have been glitching. Then again, maybe it was best she didn't think too much about Primus for now.

With a look at Grimlock standing over Windblade, Strongarm remembered something she'd overheard. "Did she call you... armour?"

A forlorn roar boomed ahead of them before Fixit could reply, and then came the thud of a very large Dinobot collapsing. Now Sideswipe had the sense to pull his blasters out, almost beating Strongarm on the draw as they aimed at the shifting shape starting to rise up from the dust.

In a whirl of shimmering plates, Windblade was gone, replaced by a rosy nightmare with fluttering wings and a mask below blazing green optics.

"Just give me the armour, guys... and no-one has to get hurt," she lilted. How could a voice like a teenspark's sound so _menacing_?

Sideswipe seemed especially baffled, as if he was expecting Windblade to leap out of the foreigner's frame like it was some big prank. Even so he kept his aim steady, almost winning back a fraction of all the goodwill he lost on Strongarm's part from all his aftkissing. Whatever happened to Grimlock had left him completely immobile, barely twitching a leg, and Bumblebee would only notice the mess when it was being cleaned up.

"What do you mean 'armour'?" Sideswipe asked, saving Strongarm the trouble of repeating her question.

The mystery villain giggled again, a sound like glass shards tinkling together. "The Kamu... the _Minicon_ , you scraphead!" She swept her greedy gaze across, searching for him. "You're not using him, so just... let me take him off your servos. You won't even miss him, promise!" she chirped, framing her faceplate with her servos and revealing a fan of thin, almost translucent pink plates fanning out from her waist.

Strongarm was in the very strong mood to just shoot her and be done with it, even without the satisfaction of it being Windblade's face. Fixit, meanwhile, was tapping very incessantly on her leg as he stood behind it.

"A little occupied here, Fixit-"

"Just listen please, ma'am," Fixit whispered back, either nerves or glitches accelerating his vocaliser. "Something's gonna happen that... I can't really explain. But just... trust me, okay?"

Strongarm raised an eyeridge, turning her attention away from the pink pile of giggles in her aim and not-so-much trusting Sideswipe to keep her away. At this rate, she figured they were beyond the realm of explanations for anything. "I... I guess? What're you-"

He was wrapping around her before she could finish.


	3. There's Something On Your Chestplates

The absurdity of the whole situation numbed Strongarm, sending her reactions into a lag of at least three nanoklicks behind reality. By the time she remembered to panic, Fixit's plating was already shifting around her waist as he clung to her hips.

"Fixit! What the Pit- get off of me!" She hopped frantically on one leg, then the other as an eerie glow started encasing them both. The light wooshed up all along her body, a blinding cyan chamber of energy building up around her that cut her off from everything else. The helium screech of the pink femme only barely managed to pierce through the fizzing veil.

" _NO_! No, no you weren't supposed to... take that off right now! You have _no idea_ what you're dealing with!"

Even if Strongarm knew what the Pit she was shrieking her glossa off about, she was too distracted by sensation of strings constricting tight around her limbs, locking her in place in the middle of the rushing void. Looking down at her servos, over her whole body in a frenzy of confusion as her armour started... _dissolving,_ almost melting away in the beams of light erupting all over her bare protoform _._ Then came the tiniest of pricks in one of her servos, something leeching inside her and starting to bleed into her fuel lines. She couldn't see Fixit anymore, wherever he was, but the blinding blue lights covering her were starting to fade into a slick overlay with vacuum-sealed tightness over her skin. They breathed out the more the glow retreated from her limbs, the invisible ropes holding her eventually dropping as the light was sucked into her chest, only lingering on the biolight patterns shimmering over her new plating. She could only see her legs propped up on heels and gloves covering her servos, but her abdomen and chestplates felt... very exposed. There was a new heavy weight on her back as well, one that almost dragged her down with no bulk on the rest of her body to counter-balance her.

Fixit was still nowhere to be seen, but his voice chirped sheepishly from somewhere under her helm. _"I... know this feels weird, ma'am_ -"

Any apology he might have had stashed away in his hiding place was thrown aside by Strongarm's outburst to nothing. "Fixit, what the frag just happened?! Where are you?!"

Reality was slowly bleeding back in as the chamber fell apart, giving an audience to her anger and... something that made Sideswipe's optics almost pop free of their sockets, not to mention the bolts of his jaw joints almost falling out from how quickly his mouth dropped out.

"S...Strongarm!?" Staring at her, he struggled to speak in his helm-over-peds entranced way, the same thing that would have made him endearing if it wasn't for the fact he'd used it constantly with not-Windblade.

Speaking of whom, the femme looked ready to burn into the ground, dainty fists balled up by her sides and eyeridges digging into her oscillating optics with how forcefully they creased. Even her wings were out of her control, twitching erratically as another screech tore past her mask.

"You took mistress' kamui!" she whined, pointing at Strongarm as if she could direct a laser beam onto her. "Do you have any idea how long it took her to find it?!"

"The only thing I have an _idea_ of is how Primus damn crazy you are!" Strongarm threw back, shifting her blasters out-

Or, trying to. Whatever had just happened to her, it had completely gutted her ranged weaponry and left only smooth curves in place of all the circuitry and plasma chargers that powered her guns.

' _Fixit, you better have a damn good reason for this slag...'_ She wasn't even sure if it was his fault- or, _all_ his fault at least- but he was the easiest one to shift blame on. Throwing her servos back uselessly and trying not to topple on her back, Strongarm was locked again into a staring match with the furious femme.

Somewhere off to her left, Sideswipe was being no use at all. "Uh, Strongarm, you might wanna look..." If he pointed to anywhere about her, Strongarm never saw it, too focused on how to best send the Windblade impostor sprawling back in the dirt.

" _Be careful, ma'am,"_ Fixit said out of nowhere again. _"She's a lot deadlier than she looks...'_

She didn't even know who or what _she_ was, but Strongarm had gathered that much already. She just wished she knew where to glare.

" _You_ just shut up. You're distracting me," Strongarm hissed, but that was all the distraction the enemy needed; she already had a plan thrashing in her shark tank processor and pulled her servo plating back into a malicious pair of knives.

"If you won't give it up willingly... I'LL JUST **SLICE** IT OFF YOU!"

Faster than her optic could track, Pinkie leapt forward and stabbed out where Strongarm's chest would have been a nanoklick fraction earlier. An echo of Fixit's warning even earlier before that, " _Sidestep!",_ still rung in her processor.

Not feeling a spark fizzling out around her blade, the femme seemed too confused to notice Strongarm still barely an inch away from her in her own state of shock. "How the... how the Pit did you know-"

Another warning from Fixit cut her off. " _Quick, sweep her down while she's not looking!"_

Strongarm brought her leg out slightly too late to catch her, fighting against the dizzying weights on her back and only skidding against the back of the impostor's kneeplate before she twirled out of the way. She stabbed with both blades this time, crossing them over in an aim for Strongarm's servos. Feeling the knives rush out just under them as they snapped upwards, Strongarm didn't need Fixit's voice telling her to slam them back down on Pinkie's helm. A leg was already up to kick her back while she was dazed, the force of it almost sending them both flying in opposite ways. Pinkie was dazed, but still close enough to snap up if she had the strength to.

With a few nanoklicks bought for herself, Strongarm whirled on Sideswipe as he milled at the sidelines like a spectator at a gladiator match, optics practically plastered on her. She might have been flattered if she was still a teenspark.

"Sideswipe, don't just fragging stand there!" she yelled, tempted to abandon the fight altogether to smack some sense into him. "Get your blasters out or something!"

Blinking, finally taking his optics off her frame and bringing them up to her faceplate, Sideswipe shook his helm with a conflicted look. "I can't _shoot_ her-"

" _What?_ " Now she _definitely_ wanted to smack something into him- a wrecking ball would have been her preferred choice. "You've _still_ got your damn little infatuation with her?!"

Sideswipe shook his helm again with bunched eyeridges. "No, cause-"

Strongarm turned away, uninterested in the answer. "Forget it. At least be useful and comm Bumblebee to get over here." Any sensible Autobot would have summoned their leader first of all, but she'd been too occupied with keeping all her armour, no matter how weird it was, intact to follow protocol for once. In her defense, they was only one protocol for dealing with impostors ("The Wheeljack Approach", one of the less damning ordinances named after her sire), and it certainly did not apply here.

" _Watch your left,"_ Fixit advised as a primrose ped came flying a centimeter from her faceplate, just barely missing Strongarm's shoulder with all its aching weight, and sending Pinkie rolling into a crouch behind her. Her mask hid whatever scowl or manic grin she might have been giving off, but her optics brimmed with enough hatred to give her expression away.

"This would be so much quicker if you'd JUST!" Stab, then duck. "STAND!" Swipe, then dodge. " _STILL!"_ Her screech brought down both her knives against Strongarm's servos, pushing against them with more strength than should have been allowed in such a slight frame.

Strongarm gritted her denta, struggling to hold the blades back from her faceplate. "It'd be a lot quicker if I had some damn _weapons..._ "

She wasn't expecting her gripe to be answered, but Fixit's voice was whispering again. _"Look around the scrap piles."_

It sounded about as useful as advice for cleaning a pet turbofox, but for all the problems and mind-frag moments the Minicon had given her, he hadn't been wrong yet. She managed to move Pinkie around, skirting around her so she was facing one of the stacks of scrap scattered by Grimlock's rampage.

A long pole had rolled out from the nearest one, dimly reflecting the midday sunlight as it lay in the dirt. It wasn't flashy or sharp, but it was better than her bare servos. Off to the right of it, Sideswipe was looking lost and on the verge of a daring rescue that she knew he wasn't planning to do. Even so, she glared over Pinkie's shoulder to get his attention and, barely for a nanoklick, flicked them back over to the tip of the pole. The message was simple enough; _'Pass it over, scraphead'._

Still holding off the knives about to bisect her, she watched Sideswipe lean down and sweep the pole up, throwing it like a javelin right at Pinkie's helm. If it didn't knock her forwards and almost push her blades right into Strongarm, she'd have been impressed.

"Owww!" Pinkie whimpered, scratching the dented part of her helm with the very tip of a knife. "What the heck?! That _huuurt_!"

Strongarm kicked the pole up into her servos, staring down at her. "That's the point, dumbaft," she said, before sweeping the pole up in a ringing arc that connected with her chin. Her tiny weight carried her far up in the air to crash down in Grimlock's still unconscious direction, in a cloud of dust and scrap flying everywhere.

Despite the hard impact, she managed to lift herself back up in a weary lump of scarred pink armour, standing on shaky legs with wings almost hanging off their joints. "Why won't you just _die?"_ she mewled like a sparkling at the start of a tantrum. "You don't even know how to use the kamui! You don't _deserve_ to wear it!"

"Why won't you just _shut up_?" Strongarm muttered, readying her makeshift bludgeon for another satisfying crack at her helm. A sudden bolt of electricity got to Pinkie first though, shocking her into an immediate stasis lock. It was a hit from a Voltage Incapacitator, designed to overload the consciousness circuits of smaller bots and at least cause some discomfort to larger ones. And only one bot in the team had access to one.

"About damn time, sir!" Strongarm said only just below a yell, and only just remembering formality as she marched up to Bumblebee. "While _Sideswipe_ did precisely nothing, _I_ just fought off a deadly threat to Earth all by myself. With _no blasters,_ thanks to Fixit." She was one more escalating rant away from saying _"I told you so about Windblade."_

Even with the resent in her tone, Bumblebee only seemed to be half-listening, hit with the same condition Sideswipe had where he couldn't keep his nosy optics up.

"I'm... gonna assume no-one here knows what just happened," he said slowly, turning around to face Sideswipe who gave a shrug at him. Strongarm scowled, sensing some kind of hidden silent conversation between them. Bumblebee turned back around before she could see any of it, now avoiding looking at her entirely with a servo rubbing the back of his helm.

"Well... this is a weird day even by Earth standards." He coughed, almost sub-consciously. "Strongarm, I'll... I'll speak to you shortly." He hurried off towards Grimlock, leaving Strongarm free to keep her glares on Sideswipe again. The crimson mech found it hard to look at her as well, drifting over to her side.

"You've really fragged up this time, Sides," she said, pointedly turning her back on him. She caught a flicker of self-pity in his optics before she refused to look at them.

"How was I supposed to know she was coco for coconuts?" he pleaded.

"That doesn't even matter!" Strongarm protested, whirling back around to stare her own brand of betrayal into him. "Even if she _was_ an Autobot, you haven't even known her for a _solar cycle_ and you were acting like you were going to propose to her!" She would have punched him, anything to wipe the guilty look off his face, but something (Fixit) kept her servo anchored to her side. She settled for another intense glare and keeping her servos crossed over her chest. "Couldn't even take a shot at her, just left me to fight her all by my fragging self," she muttered.

Sideswipe's frown deepened, his optics falling to the ground. "Well, I... I didn't want to accidentally hit you..." he mumbled, kicking at a patch of dirt. "I wasn't willing to risk..."

Whatever he was going to finish with vanished upon Bumblebee's return, with Grimlock slowly waking up and the pink horror left in stasis cuffs beside him.

"Alright, first things first," Bee said with a sigh, servos on hips and optics finally bringing themselves on her. "Strongarm; where's Fixit, and why are you half-naked?"

It was at that exact moment that, with a thorough glance downwards, Strongarm realised that yes, she was definitely half naked. And it was almost definitely Fixit's fault.

"For the record... I'm really digging it," Sideswipe offered with a lopsided smirk and his digits formed into tiny guns aimed at her. He ended up joining their pink nemesis in the dirt, cradling the crumpled plating of one of his servos. Fixit hadn't tried to stop her fist that time.


	4. Cutest Thing I've Ever Wanted To Punch

**"** So let me get this straight," Bee said for the second time, shielding his furrowed eyeridges with a palm pressed into his forehelm. He opened his vents wide in preparation for sorting through the mess again; "Windblade flipped out when she saw Fixit, tried to kidnap him, turned into that... crazy pink thing, and then Fixit..." He paused, optics flickering as he still tried to understand. " _Fused_ himself onto you."

Strongarm kept her composure intact and self-conscious blush away from pure willpower alone, now painfully aware of how exposed she was. "That's all I know," she said, tapping her pole (with her blasters still offline she was reluctant to let it go) against one of her legs with a hand on the jagged jewel covering her hip.

Bumblebee struggled to keep his faceplate blank and his optics up, eventually failing to stop them flicking over her again. "And he decided you should look like a burlesque act from Iacon," he added.

"For your information, it's actually quite comfortable," Strongarm pointed out, barely hiding her secret relish at how well the armour fit her. If it really _was_ Fixit's doing, he really knew how to hug a femme's curves.

"Oh, I'm sure it is..." Bumblebee muttered, unable to resist another heavy stare at her exposed frame. "Fixit, will you get off of her, please? I don't like having to yell at a pair of bare chestplates."

" _Well, sir, the thing is..."_ The Minicon's voice came from somewhere she couldn't see. _"She'll be_ fully _naked if I do."_

"Oh, for Primus' sake..." Strongarm groaned, already missing her regulation armour.

One of Bumblebee's optics twitched, but otherwise he stayed neutral as possible- a commendable feat, given how many laws of logic had been broken before midday. "Point taken. Strongarm, you... go do your thing. Just get Fixit out." He waved her off in an indiscriminate direction before turning away. "Sideswipe, go get the prisoner. And stop crying, she didn't even punch you that hard."

Strongarm trudged herself over to where a stack of broken bicycles and car doors mingled together to hide her from view, and was wondering how to pry the Fixit-armour fusion off when a side mirror hanging off its cords caught her optic. She'd never actually seen what Sides had been ogling so much over, only catching a glimpse of white armour and some bare protoform while she weaved between Pinkie's knives, but seeing her whole body cast in the warped mirror's gaze...

Her legs were sheathed in matte white, with electric blue lines shooting up from her peds lifted up on block heels. Her hips were fringed with the sharp diamonds she'd felt before, with short frills on top of more blue radiating out from them to brush and rustle against her upper thighs. Further up, thin strings reached out and crossed over her naked midriff to her chestplates; shackled with thicker plates barely outlining the soft protoform that stretched down to thin blue-lined gloves over her servos. Out of the whole scandalous image though, what struck her most were the giant pillars sprouting out of her shoulders and the sweeping collar-crest just barely covering her chestplates, combined with the weight of her door wings fluttering meekly behind the mess of jagged points (no wonder then why she'd felt so heavy just trying to walk). And on each crest a cyan blue optic with tiny white pupils was printed, wide and worried-looking. Without a doubt, they were Fixit's optics blinking back at her just as nervous as she felt.

A flash of light surrounded her again before she could give the whole image another look over, perhaps for the best. It cleared much faster than during its debut, leaving behind a hollow feeling deep in her systems and a very flushed looking Minicon at her feet with a new white and blue paint job. Strongarm knew she was in nothing but her protoform now, but that was the least of her concerns as she squinted down at the guilty mech.

"So, which should I get angry at first?" she asked, hands on hips. "Embarrassing me, bringing a _psycho_ to Earth or making my favourite armour set go missing?"

Fixit edged his drill into his servo prod, normal-sized optics unable to face her. "I... I asked you to trust me, ma'am." There was more static than voice to his words, his poor vocaliser glitching even more than usual. "I-It's my fault I didn't explain more about... what was going to happen. I'm sorry."

Strongarm's glare softened, if only because Fixit couldn't see it. "Do I get an explanation now?"  
Fixit's wheels revved idly. "It's... a long storage- _story,_ ma'am. I-I'd be better telling it in front of everyone."

Even though it made sense, Strongarm was still too embroiled in bitterness to change her tone. "...Whatever. Just go and let me get decent again."

 **xx**

"Her name's Twirl," Bumblebee revealed with the handcuffed and tied-together femme behind him, after Strongarm scavenged a spare set of armour and rejoined with the other gathered Autobots. Fixit, interestingly, placed himself near Sideswipe, and no-one seemed to question his mysterious new paint job just yet. "She's a first-generation Decepticon, only showed up on records after the original exodus." Bumblebee continued, making occasional glances downwards at the datapad in his hand. "A Seeker model Minicon, a little bigger than most, but not involved in any of the usual squadrons lead by Starscream. Mostly she just did guerrilla-style attacks, hitting Autobot outposts with small teams and retreating before back-up could catch them. She's been quiet since Cybertron's revival, but... obviously she's keen to get back into business."

Bumblebee cast a wary glance at her, rose plating scuffed from her struggle with Strongarm. Grimlock especially kept away from her, still feeling the effects of whatever she did to knock him out, and even Drift gave her a distasteful glance. Strongarm didn't know how much he'd been filled in of the situation, or where he'd been when he could have been helping during the whole catastrophe, but she was just grateful to finally know what kind of beast she'd just went up against.

Opposite her Sideswipe groaned as a shudder wrecked his frame, all previous affection for the femme dissolved into thin air. Strongarm couldn't help a tide of smugness at being right about her all along. "And what the Pit is she doing here?" the red mech asked.

"We'll ask her when she decides to wake up," Bee declared. "Drift, I'm sure you've knocked a few bots into stasis once you caught them. Any ways for getting them out of it?"

The bounty hunter shook his helm with a low vent of air. "Alas, stasis is much harder to break than to induce. All my captives awake naturally."

"Lemme try!" Grimlock said, clearing the way to take a firm stance in front of Twirl and a deep vent of air, before pounding his ped down repeatedly down on the ground. "Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!"

In the wake of the tremors Twirl magically sprung to life in a flurry of struggles and screeches, green optics snapping wide open and orange mask straining from muffled babbling.

"Can we put her back to sleep, please?" Sideswipe pleaded, earning an optic roll from Strongarm. The cries eventually faded into deep air vents, Twirl's optics slightly zooming in and reducing in size.

"Uggh, I had a bad dream..." she groaned, as if the Autobots weren't even there. "Maccadam's stopped doing ladies' night events!" She blinked, glancing to each side, finally noticing Bumblebee in front of her with furrowed eyeridges. "Hey, you're the jerk who shocked me!" She pulled a servo against her bonds, trying to make it point at him to no avail.

"And you're the sneaky little glitch who pretended to be Windblade, attacked Strongarm and tried to kidnap Fixit," Bee stated in a deadpan, met with a chorus of giggles like claws on a chalkboard even with a mask to muffle them.

"Fooled ya," Twirl chirped proudly, practically rubbing her peds together like a sparkling who just learned to walk.

"What have you done with the _real_ Windblade?" Drift asked with a surprising venom, suggesting the terrifying possibility that the femme Twirl was trying to pass herself off as actually _was_ out there somewhere. Strongarm felt her tanks about to empty all over the ground at the thought, while Twirl shrugged as much as her bonds would allow her, wings disabled by more cuffs around them.

"I didn't do anything! Just took the body given to me and off I went, just like I was told!"

Bumblebee frowned at the playful words, and looked behind him to where Fixit milled. He nodded towards the Minicon, who reluctantly trundled forwards. Despite her max-security treatment, Fixit kept himself way out of Twirl's potential servo range, skirting around her with a scanner display on one of his servos.

"She's sure calmed down a lot..." Strongarm noticed warily, expecting another switch into sweetie-berserker mode any klick now.

Bumblebee hummed in agreement. "The shock must have temporarily overloaded her emotional receptors."

"So she'll be back to wishing death on us all again soon enough. _Great_." Strongarm didn't try keeping sarcasm at bay.

As soon as Fixit's scans were complete, he scooted as far back as possible. "Looks like someone retrofitted her with chameleon plating," he revealed. "A lot like what Omnishifters are made of. She'd have to have scanned an already existing form to look like it, so there's definitely a bot who at least _looks_ like Windblade out there."

"Just. _Great_ ," Strongarm repeated bitterly, with a distant thought about whether or not Fixit had some of the same technology on him somewhere- it would definitely explain the colour change.

Twirl, meanwhile, was giggling as soon as her plating was brought up. "Mistress said it was a present for working so hard!"

"Was she the one who sent you here?" Bumblebee asked, leaving the details until after her purpose was clear. One of the first data-mining tricks Strongarm learned in her academy days, and from how Twirl lit up it was still as effective as it had always been.  
"Yep!" she replied readily. "I was gonna disguise myself, then I was gonna get the Kamui for her, and she was gonna look _sooo_ pretty in it. And then I was gonna get one, so I would look even cuter, and _then_ -"

Sideswipe, unfortunately, decided to take a stab at the interrogation for himself. "And who's your 'mistress', exactly?" He used his digits for air-quotes.  
Green optics rolled as if they were on wheels, with an offended look at being interrupted. " _Duhh_ , Queen Airachnid, of course!"

Over the cloud of confusion from the Autobots, Bumblebee's spark beat could have been heard all the way from Cybertron. "Oh, Primus, no," he whispered with weariness centuries older than his spark.

Strongarm glanced over to him, following everyone else's curiosity. "I'm guessing you know who she is?" she asked, already wary of the answer.

Bumblebee gulped, fists forming by his sides as he nodded once. "I _fought_ her myself. She was a Decepticon, crashed on Earth the first time I was here with Optimus. Supposedly she went missing after Arcee trapped her in an Insecticon pod, and the Decepticons took it from us. She's..." To list her crimes, her victims, a record stretching back before half of them were even sparked...

"She's not nice," he finished. "If she's involved with whatever's going on, then this goes way beyond the Decepticons."

Sideswipe, who had hardly been listening to a word out of Bee's mouth, was still wrapped up in his own grilling. "Here's something that's been bothering me; you have wings. Why not just fly up with Fixit where we couldn't reach you?"  
Twirl's cheerful humming cut out, her optics fading as they looked down. "I... I hadn't considered that, actually..."

Sideswipe raised an eyeridge a split nanoklick before he burst into a huge lunge of laughter. "You _forgot_ you had wings?! Oh, Primus, that is gold. That's like Ultra Magnus forgetting to frown, or my sire forgetting to buff his finish-!" He was interrupted in a yelp as Bumblebee pulled him out of the way.

"Sideswipe, don't mock the prisoner, no matter how much she deserves it."

Sides wormed out of Bee's grip, holding his servos up in amnesty. "Alright, alright, I won't, just... let me try once more." He went in front of Twirl again, kneeling down to make optic contact with her.

"Does Airachnid have a plan?" he asked.

"Yep!" she peeped back.  
He smiled, thinking he was making progress. "You gonna tell us what it is?"

"Nope!"

His eyeridges creased and he started stuttering in whines. "But... but before you were just... you were talking about... why not?!"  
"Don't wanna," she trilled out, still swinging her legs together. Sideswipe bowed his helm in defeat as Strongarm snorted behind him.

"Tell you what, who needs Nightbeat when we've got you, Sides?"

"Shuddup!" he lashed out. "It might've worked!"

"If she was sparked yesterday, maybe," Strongarm scoffed again, folding her servos over her chest. "I don't think we're gonna get anything else out of her. Not for now, at least."

"You're right," Bee said, looking over to the Dinobot now. "Drift, Grimlock, you're in charge of guarding her. Whatever she did before, the stasis cuffs should stop her from doing it again."

Even at the assurance, the green mech shivered as he and Drift edged closer to Twirl, who looked up at him with a raised eyeridge as if slowly recognising him from before. "I can only use my Dazzle Surprise once a solar cycle anyway..." She pouted while the Autobots left her with her guard.

Sideswipe paused, hearing Twirl's forlorn words. "Hey, I want to name my attack moves as well!" he protested, running after Bee, Strongarm and Fixit as they found somewhere further away for another, much more intense interrogation.

"No-one gets battle names until I get a battle cry first. Also, shut up." Bumblebee keeping his stern gaze intact as it settled on the shaking Minicon at his peds.

"Okay, Fixit. Your turn to talk."


	5. A Lesson In Life Fibers

Static consumed Fixit's wavering voice, forcing him to thump his neck roughly where his vocaliser was. Again, Strongarm had to stop herself feeling sorry for him. "W-Where... where do I start?"

"How about with what the Pit you and Strongarm did when Twirl showed up?" Sideswipe suggested with a step forward and a flare of anger in his optics. He almost sounded _jealous_ , maybe because the Minicon had practically been vacuum-sealed to her body. Bumblebee threw him a warning glance, forcing him to back off.

Fixit's wheels sent him sliding backwards, away from Sideswipe's sudden wrath. "It's... I-It's hard to explain. Just... just trust me, I didn't mean... to hurt anyone..." As he gave a pleading look up at Strongarm, Bumblebee held up a servo to play peacekeeper.

"Chill, Fixit. Just... fill us in." The yellow mech's voice sounded strangely soft, but it was still the most normal thing anyone had heard all day. It worked in calming the Minicon down at least. He edged the gaze of his optics around the three taller bots rather than actually looking at any of them.

"Well, in all the... commotion, my battle protocols activated," he explained. "They're different from usual ones. They... told me to fuse with Strongarm." He pointed his drill towards her, seeming to search her faceplate for any hint of understanding. She wasn't willing to give it just yet.

The two mechs followed his gesture, with Bumblebee raising an eyeridge. "Why her?"  
"She was... the closest match to the form I have pre-programmed."

"Wait, you've done this _before_?" Strongarm stepped in, overtaking Sideswipe's mumbles of; "'Ship caretaker', my aft..."

Fixit brought his sheepish look back up again, but whether or not he would have said anymore was never revealed as Bumblebee wrenched the interview back on track.

"Look, before we go tying ourselves in knots for no reason..." He directed another warning glare, at both Sideswipe and Strongarm now. "Fixit, what the Pit _are_ you?"

The Minicon gave himself several nanoklicks to answer, blowing air deep from his vents as his optics shuttered. "A Kamuicon," he said quietly.  
As usual, Sideswipe was the first to voice everyone's confusion. "A _what_?"

Fixit didn't seem to expect them to understand, casting a sad look upwards before rolling forwards, giving himself something to do other than tangle his servos together. "There's a legend that says when the Thirteen were around, Solus Primefound... alien parasites floating across the universe. Life Fibers, they were called."

"I didn't know we were getting a history lesson," Sideswipe not-so-subtly groaned, earning himself a hard jab from Strongarm's fist in his shoulder.

Fixit went on, not showing if he heard Sideswipe or not. "From what I was told, they go to organic planets, like this one, and feed off the energy of the most evolved species by covering them, like... clothes, or armour. They'd speed up evolution of their chosen species, until they've taken over the planet. After they've starved it of energy, they bloom out and move onto a different one." He turned around after stopping a short distance away from the taller bots, flicking his optics nervously to each of them.

Strongarm wasn't sure yet what to make of the story, but Bumblebee kept his suspicion intact. "What did Solus supposedly want with them?" he asked.

"Well, Cybertronians aren't organic, obviously, but the Fibers can still feed off spark energy. She thought she could use them to help us, harnessing their benefits without the drawbacks. She created sets of armour and infused them with the fibers, and then scattered them across the universe. She called them Kamuis."

Sideswipe made a sound that gave the impression he understood any of what Fixit just said, which Strongarm knew was pure slag. "Well, that clears up some of what the pink terror was babbling about," she muttered, not wanting to imagine what an overpowered Twirl might have looked like.

"That still doesn't explain why you were..." Bumblebee paused, hovering a servo in the air before vaguely gesturing to Strongarm. "Well, clinging to Strongarm's chestplates." She resisted the urge to give his shoulder the Sideswipe treatment as well.

"Right, right, uh, well..." Fixit started nervously driving forward again, like a legless form of pacing. "There's more than that. Solus was supposed to have worked with Micronus to give us- Minicons, that is, Life Fiber armour. I don't k-know the exact details, but..."

He finally skidded to a stop back in front of Strongarm, with a slow sweep of his servo over his frame. As he did so, his plating seemed to warp and change right in front of them, glowing bright red for a split nanoklick before fading back to his familiar rust brown paint. "I've got Life Fibers in me. And like you saw, I can become armour for other Cybertronians. So... I'm a Kamuicon."

His fake grin at the revelation instantly disappeared when he saw neither of the other bots returned the sentiment. Strongarm especially had the taunting urge to step on him while he was close.

"Well... it's not so far-fetched," Sideswipe admitted. "I've heard of Minicons that could turn into rocket launchers before." Though he started to smile at the thought, a more disturbing one replaced it and spread a distressed expression over his faceplate. "Hey, does this mean Slipstream and Jetstorm and... Drift could..." He made several gestures with his digits, pressing two of them together and then fanning them apart with seemingly random sound effects accompanying them from his mouth. Somehow Fixit managed to translate the display into Neocybex.

"No, no. Only some of us have enough Life Fibers in them to be armour."

"Oh, thank Primus." Sides sighed and shuddered in relief as the scarring mental image of Drift in stripper gear finally went away.

Bumblebee kept up the mantle of serious leader with an unnatural expertise. "Are the Life Fibers dangerous?"

Strongarm felt her optics go wide, overcome with surprise that she hadn't been wondering that herself- she'd just been _wearing_ deadly parasites from outer space, possibly even farther out than Cybertron and older than the Thirteen Primes. They were very _pretty_ deadly ancient parasites, but still.

"Only in large numbers," Fixit assured, a new wave of nervousness sweeping over him. "They can regenerate themselves if they're cut. Perfect for armour, not so good if you're trying to get rid of them. There were also... some on the Alchemor just this morning, when I was doing maintenance rounds. They ended up merging with me- the Fibers already in me, I mean. They've been dormant for stellar cycles, but that must have woke them up... Strongarm, ma'am, saw me trying to electrocute them-" He must have felt Bee's stare harden into a glare from how he cut himself off, helm starting to bow in shame.

"Fixit, you should have known better than to bring a dangerous alien species to a vulnerable organic planet," Bumblebee scolded. "Even more so without warning us about it."

Fixit revved one of his wheels as if kicking at the ground, helm still lowered. "The ones I carry can't directly infect anyone else, sir-"

"That's not the point," Bee interrupted. "The fact is you still hid this from us and endangered other Autobots, not to mention every human on the planet!"

"Also he brought the crazy chick here!" Sideswipe said from behind him. "Don't forget that!"

Bumblebee hid the glare of his optics behind their lids with a low groan, giving Fixit a brief break from his judgement. "I was... trying to hide from it all, really," the Minicon confessed. "I know that's no excuse, but... I didn't know this would happen."

The sincerity was palpable, but still didn't fully convince them. "Strongarm, do you have anything to add?" Bee asked, turning to face her. She'd mostly been trying to piece together all the new information as it came, only finalising her opinion when there was enough of it to build upon. Life Fibers, talking armour, Decepticon spies... even her preliminary Wrecker training hadn't prepared her for anything beyond negotiating alien bars and knowing how many Asari Astroshots would knock you out. Maybe this was how Bumblebee felt working with Optimus all those years ago- completely out of his depth.  
She turned a softer gaze on Fixit, sighing as she finally uncrossed her servos. "I don't blame you for... the fusion, or whatever it is you did," she said. "If it seemed like the best decision at the time, then it probably was. We both defeated Twirl, and that's the important thing."

For the first time that day, Fixit's smile was real, optics bright with relief. "I won't do it again, I promise. At least... not without asking first."

Despite the residue of anger still coiled up in her spark, Strongarm let a smirk slip along her lips. "I dunno, Fixit. Armour that talks back, heals itself and fits like a dream... doesn't seem all that bad now."

"Also it makes you even hotter than usual!"  
"Shut up, Sideswipe."

xx

After some debate, it was decided everyone would be safer with Twirl confined to a stasis pod for the time being. Then came Denny wanting to know why over half the scrapyard was scattered to the four corners of the world, and Russell making faces at Twirl through the pod window. Sideswipe made more scattered attempts to get back into Strongarm's favour, each one rebuffed with either skeptical silence or a servo smack.

Evening came with words better said in private, and Bumblebee having Strongarm and Fixit follow him to the edge of the nearby forest; well out of sight and audio range.

"What're you thinking, sir?" Strongarm asked, still not sure what to expect. With all the scrap that's crashed down on them, it was a wonder no-one had a processor meltdown by now.  
Bumblebee kept a digit on his chin, optics creased in constant contemplation. Finally, he spoke; "I'm thinking we need to find Airachnid ASAP."

She definitely wasn't expecting that. "Isn't that a little ambitious, sir?" she asked hesitantly with raised eyeridges. "You said yourself that she's dangerous, and Twirl is our only lead to where she might be."

Bumblebee regarded her with optics as cold and hard as weathered stone. "You don't know what she's capable of, Strongarm. Pit, even _I_ only know half of the kind of the damage she can do. If she's got any more lackies like Twirl, the resources to send them to planets and attack Autobots..." His digits started to tremble as he shook his helm. "It's bad. It's fragging _bad._ "

As inexperienced as Bee was, he'd always resisted showing this much raw fear. Strongarm shared a look with Fixit, confirming the worry they both shared.

Even so, she tried to think outside the box of doom. "How do we even know Twirl's telling the truth? She already looks a few hundred lines short of a code module. For all we know and what you said, Airachnid could have died long ago."

Bumblebee shook his helm again, slower this time. "I'm just not willing to take that risk." Now he turned his attention to the Minicon- or Kamuicon, or whatever he was. "Fixit, from what you said about Life Fibers, Kamuis, all of that stuff... I think you two are supposed to work together to stop her."

Just when Strongarm thought the day's weirdness had finally peaked at living armour. "And how are we supposed to do that?" she asked, frustration leaking through her voice.

"I can work out a plan over the night," Bee said. "But chances are you'll have to leave Earth-"

Strongarm and Fixit's disbelief was simultaneous. " _What?_ "

"She'll be hiding out, Primus knows where," Bee went on, as if it was already a signed decision. "But she's not exactly the most inconspicuous femme, so if she's out there others will know where she is."

Strongarm was still processing some of Fixit's Life Fiber lesson, let alone taking in what Bumblebee was suggesting. "But... but Optimus Prime told us to stay here. To _protect_ Earth." She pointed at the ground as a kind of emphasis. "We can't just _abandon_ it on the word of some maniac from space-"

Gentle hands on her shoulders stopped her, faint blue optics catching hers. "This is way beyond Optimus, Strongarm," Bee said quietly. "If we wait for Airachnid to come to us, by the time she gets here it'll be way too late to stop her. The way I see it, this... this is _Solus_ Prime warning us." He lowered his servos now. "If this is her telling you to leave... then we'll end up doomed if you stay. Both of you. Some others might even volunteer to join you."

The solemn sigh of his words pushed past Strongarm's thick fog of uncertainty, but not enough to completely separate it from her. "You want me to track down who you say is the most deadly Decepticon next to Megatron himself?" Sarcasm only barely masked the hint of hopelessness at the prospect.

Bumblebee must have noticed both layers, from his grim grin. "Pretty much. But we can handle the other 'Cons around here. Sideswipe will definitely miss you-"

"Don't," Strongarm said harshly, closing her optics to stop them from flaring up. "Don't start with him." She still couldn't forget his pining gazes at Windblade- _Twirl ,_ she reminded herself,- the constant craving of approval from a bot he didn't even know. As if she wasn't even there...

Bumblebee seemed surprised at her reaction, mouth pressing into a small frown. "Well, we'll all miss you, really. Even Drift, I bet." The smile and narrow peak of denta made their return.

"You're still assuming we're gonna agree to this little suicide mission," Strongarm reminded him through gritted denta.

"You and I both know you're too stubborn to die, Strongarm. Besides-" He nodded to Fixit. "You'll have the walking closet here as well."

The Minicon fought off a blush harder than she did a sigh. "Just how the Pit am I even supposed to get off Earth without a working ship?"

Bumblebee looked at her blankly, then actually laughed at the question while pressing two digits to his audios in a play at deafness. "I'm sorry, did I just hear that from the daughter of the Wreckers' most decorated starship captain?"  
Somehow, even light years away, Wheeljack managed to interfere with her life like she was still a teenspark. _'Wouldn't be the first time I hitched a ride from him...'_ She had his comm frequency rooted deep in her unit, knowing he'd be here in less than five klicks if she acted like an Insecticon was about to eat her.

Just the thought of spending time with him added some light to the bleak mission stretched out in front of them.

"And what's your thoughts on this, Fixit?" she asked, looking down at him and trying to scan for any emotion. "You'll be the one fending off swords and bullets, after all."

Fixit gulped, twiddled with his drill, before summoning his helm up to look up at both of them. "It's been a long time since I've been in any battles like that... but I'm all for it." A smile cracked into existence on his faceplate. "I'm not much use as the caretaker of a broken ship, after all, so... I might as well do what I was made for."

Bumblebee made a proud sound of assent, servos crossed, patiently watching Strongarm for her decision. She flexed her digits, shoveling vents, a well rehearsed ritual of irritation.

"Fine. I'll go," she stated, too quickly to inject any venom into it. Before either of them could speak back she pulled something from her subspace, long enough that she was still extracting it out as she marched away. "But I'm taking my pole with me."


	6. It's The Bittersweet Kind of Love

Strongarm was halfway to the relief of her quarters when Sideswipe decided to make one last effort to turn her spark around. As soon as she saw him running up, she gripped her pole a lot tighter.

"Whatever you want, make it quick," she snapped, instantly halving the speed of his peds as they tramped across the scrapyard. It was harsher than she intended, but at least it told him she wasn't in the mood for the usual slag.

"I, uh... I heard about what's happening tomorrow," Sideswipe started, threading his digits together with an out-of-place nervousness. "About... you leaving. Going after the queen crazy and all that. And I... I told Bee I wanted to go with you. He told me to get a yes from you first, so..."

He smiled at her, weakly but with enough hope that she almost did say yes.

"There won't be enough room in my dad's ship for you," she said instead.

The hope drained from his faceplate like it was bleeding, his smile collapsing in on itself. "Oh... alright. I guess... nothing to be done about that." He shrugged his drooping door wings, as if his faceplate wasn't painted with woe at being left behind.

The sight of it hurt her spark worse than the one of him ogling Windblade, forcing something gentle for once out of her vocaliser. "You wouldn't want to be on it, anyway. He gets... overprotective when there's other mechs around." That much was _definitely_ true, but all it got from him was a huff of air that tried to be a laugh.

"I'll... send you comms, though," she tried, even though it should have been obvious that she would. "If I can. Make sure the planet hasn't gone to the Pit with just you guys looking after it."

Sideswipe instantly perked up, lips twitching in a hesitant grin. "Sure, yeah, I mean... of course Bee will be checking in, and we'll all miss you. But I'll... try not to miss you too much." The bad-boy facade suddenly clicked back into place, in a hurry to cover the concern misting over his optics.

Strongarm resisted hitting some part of him again. "Yeah, well... don't try too hard," she told him, turning away with her pole hefted over one shoulder.

"Y'know, I was telling the truth," he called out. "About you... and the Fixit armour... making you look hot... I mean, even more than usual..."

She didn't need to turn back to see him rubbing a servo along his helm and drawing circles in the dirt with his peds, like a teenspark caught in trouble by his carrier, but she did anyway to make sure her smugness was unmissable.

"You don't think I already know that, Sides?"

With that ringing in his mind, she went off to her berth. Unlike some previous nights, he didn't follow her.

Alone at last, Strongarm fell back onto her makeshift berth and watched the stars coming out leagues above her. Maybe one of them was Wheeljack, waiting for her voice.

She clicked her comm line on with a digit on the side of her helm. "Dad?"

It had been so long since she said that word it felt strange to hear it, as if it didn't leave her glossa right. She tried again, as if only the perfect inflection would bring him to her.  
"You there, Dad?"

She must have got it right that time. " _Three whole vorns and no call until now, baby? Must mean you want somethin'."_

Those three vorns hadn't changed his voice at all; still scratchy and deep and booming through her childhood. "I missed you too, Daddy."

His laugh erupted over the line like warm syrup in her audios. " _Y'know I'm just yankin' your spark, sweetie. Still missin' ya like slag, though."_

"I've been... busy with work," she said, almost banging her optics to stop them filling with coolant. "A lot of changes... especially recently."

 _"I heard about some kind of reassignment..."_ Wheeljack said back with a grumble. _"Damn Enforcers won't tell me where you are, though."_

"That'll be because last time they told you, you took me off duty and on a bar crawl with you," she reminded him.

 _"Hey, I don't care what they say, that was valuable life experience!"_ he protested, and she could almost see his servos pointing at some imaginary officer standing in front of him. Usually there actually _was_ an officer trying to arrest him, though.  
"Well, since you mentioned it, I do... need something," Strongarm confessed.

" _Is it the Jackhammer?"_ Wheeljack guessed without a beat skipped. It was a natural exchange for both of them; she made sure he didn't spend weekends locked up, and he made sure she didn't have to get public transport back on Cybertron.

"Before you start thinking things; no, I didn't wake up hungover outside Omega station again," Strongarm informed, with faint flashbacks to her fateful 21st sparkday celebrations. "I'm actually..." She took a deep vent of air, knowing he'd know exactly where she was. "I'm on Earth."

There was only the crackle of static over the light years between them. " _That's one hell of a reassignment… I ain't even allowed near the place and I damn well saved it from extinction!_ " At first his vents were shaky, but as was his usual habit he covered his anxiety with a chuckle. " _So you need me to take you back to Cybertron before you get busted_?"

"Not exactly." Now came the hard part. "I need to look for something- some _one_ , actually. It's a long story, but basically..." A sigh came blowing hard through her lips before words she never thought they'd say followed on from it. "I need to save the galaxy." She left out the part where she had to do it while dressed as a stripper.

Another lapse of silence, making her worry he'd left her until a chuckle filled her audios. _"I always knew ya' would at some point, baby."_ She could hear the grin in his voice. _"And I'll hear it all in a few breems when I come get'cha."_

A few breems was still a tomorrow away, but she was grateful for the time to recharge. "Thanks, Dad. I love you." She missed having someone to say those words to.

 _"I love ya too, sweetspark,"_ he repeated, lingering on the line for a few nanoklicks as if wanting to say more. Eventually the static cut out though, and she was alone again.

At least, until Fixit rolled up to the show.

"Are you in bear- there, ma'am?"

"Yeah, Fixit." She left the sigh hanging as an open invitation, hearing his wheels bumping along the metal sheets that made up the floor. She could feel him watching her warily, as if she'd spring up and try to carry him off as well.

"I... don't mean to interrupt-"

"I wasn't doing anything," Strongarm assured. "Just getting an early night for our _big day tomorrow_." She pushed herself up, abandoning recharge for now to give Fixit her own brand of wary stare.

"What you said to Bumblebee... were you serious? Actually wanting to go out there?"

He looked away, before giving a nervous half-smile. "Of course. I'm... well, I'm not as weak as I look."

"I wasn't saying that. I mean... I think you proved that pretty well today." Strongarm tried to give him a more cheerful smile, but it probably ended up looking more like a grimace.

Her cables gave up on her as she fell back into her berth, squeezing the glow of her optics into barely more than slits.

"This is so messed up," she whispered through a sigh. Wheels trundled again in what she thought was Fixit making a quick escape, but he still there when he spoke, closer than lingering in the entrance.

"I know," he said quietly, over the sound of metal scraping metal; something twirling his drill. "Even I can't believe... what I am, sometimes."

Strongarm's optics slowly unsealed themselves, settling on Fixit leaning against one of the only full walls of the structure. "Did you always know you could do that?" she asked. "Fuse with bots, be armour for them?" Or maybe he had to teach himself what kind of creatures were living inside him, in constant fear of what they might do to him or someone else...

Luckily for her conscience he nodded, somewhat forlornly. "It runs in the family," he said, meeting her gaze with some steadiness, the first time he'd tried since their own fusion. "My sire and carrier had Life Fibers, and their ones did... all the way back to Micronus' first ones."

"That's some kind of legacy to carry," she couldn't help muttering, holding herself up on her elbows. As well as the regular 'Kamui' armour he'd mentioned, there were entire generations of Minicons like him. She was surprised Wheeljack hadn't told her any bedtime stories about them; some kind of romantic tale about a mech tracking down the armour to protect the femme he loved, or a bot fighting Unicron himself for the honour of wearing one. She refused to believe that they were really so few in the universe who knew about them.

After all, how hidden could living armour actually _be_?

"You said you've done it before. Fusing with another bot," Strongarm mentioned, calling back to the conversation cut short by Bumblebee.

Fixit nodded again, slower and now definitely forlornly. Either it hurt to nod or he was hiding a lot more than just parasites inside him.

"So... if I'm not the first one you've fused with, who was?"

For the first few nanoklicks he stayed frozen, aside from the flickering glow of his optics in the gloom. Then his mouth started to twitch, wavering in a line that started to dip into a frown. His optic lids lost control of themselves, furiously swiping down on his optics and cutting their glow out. It was another few nanoklicks before a tear of coolant managed to escape down his faceplate.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Strongarm rushed to say, rising up again and holding a servo out, almost reaching for him. She couldn't deal with crying bots even at the best of times. And this was definitely the worst.

The Minicon's vents calmed themselves, faceplate hardening again as he brought himself back down. His lids still spasmed over his wide optics, only holding open when he looked at her again. "She matched your physical profile. That's all I can say." The emotion was still laid bare in his vocaliser.

"Alright, then." Strongarm didn't know why her own vocaliser went so soft, didn't know it couldn't even do that, after all her training in bringing criminals down with just some stern yells and a hard glare.

Across the room she heard Fixit sigh, no doubt from relief, and then a flurry of stutters desperate to fill any awkward silence that might have followed. "Uh, ma'am, if it helps, I'm... sorry I have to be so, uh... revealing. It's just how the Life Fibers work."

Strongarm shrugged, giving him a dim smile. If _that_ was the thing he was most worried about, she could get used to him as a mission partner. "Don't feel bad. I wore worse in my Academy days."

From the way his eyeridges couldn't decide if they wanted to be up or down, that caught him off guard even more than Twirl's appearance."Uh... uh, r-really?"

Strongarm struggled not to laugh, bolting her lips tight together before the bubble in her throat finally popped. "Yeah, I... had a night job in Praxus to pay tuition fees. Let's just leave it at that." The same one Wheeljack made her leave under threat of being grounded for the next five stellar cycles.

Sensing humour in the air, Fixit let a smile curl on his lips. He really was a lot like a sparkling, she realised.

"Tell me about how they work," she said to him. "The Life Fibers."

He gave her a surprised glance, smile pressing into a small O-shape. "It's much less interesting than it sounds," he admitted, doing his nervous drill-twitch again. "I don't want to bore you-"

"Tell me anyway. Might help me recharge." She leaned back on her berth again, settling her helm on her pillow and closing her optics.

"Well... alright." Fixit gave his vocaliser a small cough, before moving himself into some sort of seat from the sound of wheels scuffing the floor. "They're supposed to work like mutual parasites, giving a benefit to their host. But it only really works if they're synchronised..."

She didn't catch any more than that, counting the stars behind her optic lids as they started to fade into black.


	7. The Master Plan For Dying Young

Strongarm found her dreams full of cobwebs. She was rubbing their sleepy strings out of her optics as they snapped open to the first rays of morning falling through the open roof above her. Fixit had fallen asleep at some point after her, still snoring against the wall. Strongarm debated over waking him up, and eventually duty won out over sentiment as she tapped a digit against his shoulder.

"Morning already?" he mumbled through a yawn, with that whine all mechs seemed to hum out from being woken up. Sideswipe was the most guilty victim of it, she came to notice, but Fixit came a close third to Grimlock. With all the slag the Minicon got pulled through yesterday, that didn't surprise her as much as it should have.

"Better grab some rations before the others start moving," she told him with the lightest of taps from her fist against his servo. "Bumblebee should have his 'master plan for dying young' ready for us by now."

Dragging herself into the daylight, Strongarm forced herself to guzzle at least one cube of energon despite the roiling state of her tanks- even if she went into stasis from fuel shortage, it wouldn't get her out of the mission lying in wait for her.

Or, more accurately, the mission hanging around the ration stash in yellow armour.

"There you are," Bumblebee greeted, with enough lag to reveal that he didn't recharge for nearly long enough. "With all the... excitement yesterday, I gave everyone else a chance to sleep in." Strongarm could only manage a nod back as she finished off her cube. Bee gave time for her tanks to fill up before holding up a datapad- a model at least four stellar cycles out-of-date, from the looks of it. "I found a starmap in our supplies; lists every major spaceport between here and Cybertron."

The last of Strongarm's hope that all the lunacy of the past few breems had been nothing but a fever dream whistled out through her lips as she sighed. "You're really serious about this, huh, sir?"

"Gotta be serious about _something_ ," Bee answered, with one of his young and sad smiles. "Especially if it's got Airachnid's legs all over it..." His optics dragged down to the ground at the mention of her name. He coughed into a hand while his other one revealed another datapad behind the first one he held up. "Speaking of her, I got her prisoner profile on another 'pad as well." He handed them both over to her, like relieving himself of a burden. "Nothing to scare you too much, just to... give you an idea of what you're up against."

Strongarm nodded, resisting another sigh as she glanced at the display of the Airachnid pad. With so much else going on she'd forgotten to ask any more about her; the so-called 'black widow' of the Decepticons, if she recalled the old horror stories that flitted around in her foundation academy youth correctly. The default screen showed her name, status (unknown, suspected deceased) and her danger level. There was a lot of red warning marks in that column.

Bumblebee's voice broke her concentration. "Fixit, make sure you completely fill your tanks." The Minicon drove up without Strongarm even noticing, extracting a cube from the pile and taking small sips from it. "Wheeljack's bound to have rations on board, but you'll have to trade for more when you start running low." Bumblebee turned back to Strongarm with an eyeridge raised in question. "You talked to Wheeljack, right?"

"Before I recharged," she confirmed, starting to doubt how hushed her voice actually was during their conversation.

"Did he say when he was coming?"

"He just said he'd be a few breems. Primus knows how long that is across light years."

Bumblebee nodded as Fixit drained his cube, throwing the empty shell aside with brighter optics looking up at his leader.

"So... what's the plan, sir?" The slightest of trembles from his vocaliser betrayed how nervous he was, but he still hid it better than Strongarm.

Bumblebee crossed his servos over, gliding his optics to one side as if trying to recall the details. That didn't help Strongarm's already rock-bottom confidence in anyone surviving for long. "There's no telling what kind of resources Airachnid might have, wherever she is," Bee started. "All we know is she's got at least one supporter, and a means of getting her to Earth. For whatever reason, she hasn't tried using it to come here directly, which either means she can't use it herself, or she's getting ready for something. Before you go chasing after her, the very first thing you should do is investigate. Ask around the spaceports about her, find out what she might be planning. We'll keep interrogating Twirl on our side and send over anything useful she tells us."

"And if we find any leads?" Strongarm asked, almost buying into the whole ridiculous thing.  
"Chances are... any other followers she might have will try hunting you down when they hear you're after her," Bumblebee confessed. "But they shouldn't be a problem with... Fixit's talents. If anything, they should help with leading you right to her. But if all roads lead to the Axiom Nexus... " She recognised the saying for 'if you're going around in useless circles' as Bee gave a shrug. "Well, we can't say we didn't _try_ to find her." His lopsided smile, weak as it was, wasn't returned by either bots. His lips pushed out a sigh as they fell into a frown.

"I know I'm asking a lot of you two," he said. "But out of everyone on this team... you're the ones who have the best chance of succeeding. Even without these Life Fibers on your side."

Whether or not it was true, Strongarm couldn't stop the faintest of smiles clearing up the serious slab of her faceplate. Fixit tried unsuccessfully to hide a blush with his drill brought up to his faceplate, and almost ended up poking an optic out as a rapidly approaching Grimlock knocked into him.

"So when are we leaving, Bee?!" the Dinobot asked, practically jumping on his peds as his tail swished like an excited turbofox's. "I got my spare armour sets packed, and my buffing pads, and my bobblehead collectio-"

As he counted off all his painstaking preparations on his digits, Bumblebee brought reality down on him. "You're not going with them, Grimlock."

Strongarm felt a little guilty at being relieved. Her sire could be enough of an overgrown sparkling at times, she wouldn't be able to handle a full-time one as well. Grimlock shook his helm with wide and bewildered optics, almost smacking Strongarm aside. "Huh? Why not?!"

"Because the only ship you've ever been on is now in several pieces, and with two of the team gone we need all the help we can get to defend ourselves against other Cons," Bumblebee reminded him.

Grimlock growled, slamming his denta against each other, before whirling around and knocking poor Fixit again as his tail swept the mumble-filled air furiously. "No fair... tired of this dumb rock and dumb other Decepticons always doing dumb... Decepticon... things!"

"He'll get over it," Bee reassured, helping Fixit to get upright again. "Probably tire himself out kicking Twirl's stasis pod." Fixit brushed his armour free of dust- Strongarm was still getting used to knowing there was alien parasites all over his plating- as Bumblebee relayed the last details.

"Wheeljack knows to follow your co-ordinates-" Bee nodded to Strongarm, "-so you can wait for him in one of the clearings. Make sure you get your subspace filled before you leave." That made Fixit almost jump on his wheels and zoom off in the other direction, where his own tiny living quarters was. Either Bee knew Fixit wasn't done packing or he saw an opportunity, from how he leaned in to Strongarm and lowered his vocaliser.

"You sure Sideswipe can't come with you?"

Strongarm didn't want to admit the regret starting to cover her hasty decision like a cloud of noxious gas. And she had a suspicion the only reason Bumblebee was asking her was to give her a chance to change it.

She was always as stubborn as her sire though. "I'm sure, sir. He... wouldn't be beneficial to the mission." It was better than calling him 'a distraction'.

"Well... alright. And here I was looking forward to a long break from him." Bumblebee huffed a shadow of a laugh through his vents. "He'll want to say goodbye, though, of course. Knowing him, he'll be the last to."

Fixit returned with a sheen of coolant over his frame, already having used up half his rations by the looks of him. But before Strongarm could ask what he was in such a hurry to fetch, the rest of the team caught up with them. Drift was the first to awake with his own Minicons following close behind him- despite the blank steel of his faceplate, he bowed before Strongarm and Fixit.

"May the Circle of Light protect you both on your journey," he said, pressing his palms together under his chin with optics closed. Slipstream and Jetstorm didn't copy the display, instead regarding Fixit with a new wariness. A shame neither Strongarm or Fixit wouldn't be staying long enough to see just how much they knew about Fixit's true nature, or how terrified they obviously were of it.

Despite Grimlock's brimming envy, he muttered a 'see ya' to both of them through a mouthful of scrap, with a friendly helmbutt to Strongarm (Fixit did the smart thing and ran away before he could receive one as well). Russell was most upset, clear coolant leaking from his strange gleaming optics as he hugged Strongarm's leg and leaned down to pat Fixit's back. There was no way the human could understand what was at stake, and Strongarm knew he wouldn't know all the details, but it hurt her spark to leave him behind nonetheless.

Bumblebee resisted a high five and went for a more formal salute, and just as he predicted, Sideswipe was the last to say his farewells.

"So, you're off," he said as if he was taking inventory, the casualness practically crafted into his words. The only way he could be more obviously covering his pain is if his spark had 'I'm sorry' carved into it. "How, uh... how long d'you think you'll be gone for?"

Strongarm glanced over Sideswipe's shoulder as he rubbed the back of his helm, watching Fixit clear a better landing site for Wheeljack. "A few decacycles, at the least," she told him. "Primus knows how long at the most."

"With only your dad and... a talking armour set," Sideswipe said slowly, as if running each word through a lie detector and being in disbelief that they passed.

"And Airachnid stored in the boot, if we're lucky," Strongarm added.

"Maybe even a few other glitches like Twirl," Sides suggested, with a slight hesitancy at Twirl's name. He knew there was a risk of losing Strongarm just by mentioning her name, but he took it anyway for the chance to see her smile. And, at the mental image of bashing a whole army of Twirls in their chins, she did.

"Wish I could see you kicking aft like that again," he further lamented, gaining a raised eyeridge from her.

"Is that only cause you could see _my_ aft as well?" she asked.  
"That... might be part of the reason."

Snorts of laughter broke through the solemn atmosphere, helms jolting closer together as they both tried to quiet themselves. It took half a klick for them to calm down, and by then they were close enough to feel each other's EM field's fizzling together.

Their lips might have gotten even closer if it wasn't for Fixit interrupting.

"Uh, ma'am, how wide did you say your sire's ship was?" the Minicon called out, dragging Strongarm's helm away from Sides'.

"Sixty cubic meters!" she said back, cupping a hand around her lips mostly to stop them tingling. Looking back to Sideswipe, he'd gone right back to swiping a hand over his helm and looking anywhere that wasn't her face.

"Say bye to Fixit for me," he said, starting to edge slowly back into the forest, just outside the scrapyard. "And, uh... good luck." She knew why he was so intent on keeping his optics down when they finally met hers- overflowing with the same brand of regret tainting her own processor.

Strongarm watched him leave, staring after the leaf-dabbled red armour even when it disappeared. She only turned around when a whistle of the wind fooled her into thinking the Jackhammer was already overhead, only to find Fixit skidding to a stop behind her.

"Landing's ready," he said, with an accomplished grin and a servo pointing over his shoulder. She walked closer to it, the huge square swept clear of twigs and leaf litter that might clog the Jackhammer's engines during take-off, and started watching the sky. It kept her mind off the forest, at least.

"Ma'am, could I ask a... uh, personal question?" Fixit asked after the first few awkward klicks. Strongarm didn't have to glance down to know he was doing his nervous drill twirl again.  
"You've been practically glued to my protoform, Fixit, I think we're beyond that formality."

"S-Sorry..." Fixit coughed. "Uh... it's about you and Sideswipe...?"

"What about him?" It came out in a rush, Strongarm's eagerness to get anything about him out of the way almost mashing the words together. Fixit only continued when she stopped watching the sky and turned her waiting optics on him.  
"Are... are you, uh..."

She'd mentally prepared herself for this conversation a hundred times before, but it was always for facing Wheeljack and his constant suspicion about any mechs she spent more than five klicks with at any one time. Then again, it was only a matter of time before a whole other sort of rumour started to spread. She should have known it as soon as Bumblebee was surprised at Sideswipe not joining her.

"Are we a couple?" she finished for Fixit, waiting for his nervous nod. She pressed her lips together, trying to think of an answer that would make sense to her. If anyone had asked her it a few days ago, she'd have been tempted to say yes.  
"...No," she eventually decided, a quiet submission to the fact. "Daddy didn't raise me to date punks."

Fixit knew better than to ask any more about the subject, yet Strongarm didn't like the silence that followed.

"What were you so anxious to get before we left?" she asked, servos crossed over her chest.

"Oh, well, when Bee was talking about stocking up, it reminded me..." Fixit reached into his subspace and, after some rummaging, pulled out something like half of a stasis cuff covered in a line of blue panels.  
"It's, uh... it's a bond band," he explained, holding it up. "Something I didn't mention before... the Life Fibers work best if there's already a way into you. A... cut or a wound or something."

"That doesn't sound horribly dangerous at all," Strongarm deadpanned. He must have known how bad it sounded, from how quickly he processed her sarcasm.

"Well, when we first... bonded, they had to enter your energon stream manually," he went on, rolling the band in his digits. "It's painful and inefficient, compared to them going through something that's already open."

That explained why she felt so much stinging during the first fusion. The prospect of not going through it again was enough to get her over the thought of having parasites almost literally infesting her insides. She reached down for the cuff, giving it her own examination. "So what does the band do?"

"It's pretty simple," Fixit said, rolling so he was underneath where she held it out in front of her. "You clamp it on, and it makes a tiny prick in your protoform. Big enough for the Fibers to get through, but not enough to bleed too much."

Running her digits over it, she noticed one of the panels pressed in with a _swish_. The sound was eventually revealed to be from very thin needle shooting out from the inside of the band, almost grazing one of her digits. Releasing the panel retracted the needle just as smoothly.

Most bots wouldn't have put what looked like a Decepticon torture device around their servo, but Strongarm wasn't scared of something as minuscule as a needle.

"So... like this?"

As soon as the cuff snapped around her elbow, the tiniest of pricks bloomed in her protoform, and light consumed her. The transformation was quicker but more intense than before, the thin plating and strings- what must have been the Life Fibers, she realised with a rush of unease- pulling themselves even tighter around her in a blaze of blue and white. Again she felt weight pulling her shoulders and back down, her winglets fluttering frantically as they struggled to keep her balanced. Knowing how exposed her midriff and thighs were only made the bare protoform prickle wildly, and when she tried to looking down at her chest she thought she could see Fixit's optics looking up at her, squinting nervously.

"Well... it works," she said, almost as a question. It worked so well, in fact, she'd almost missed the starship hovering above as its shadow started to loom over her. The Jackhammer had arrived, too late for her to change back.


	8. If You Think I'm Bad, Meet My Dad

Strongarm knew from the start that Wheeljack wouldn't approve of her new armour style, but she'd been hoping for at least a few more days to prepare before forcing it on him.

"Brace yourself, Fixit. If I know my sire, this could get pretty ugly..."

A shadow plummeted over them before the Minicon wrapped around her could ask what she meant. The Jackhammer landed with extraordinary swiftness, and the doors were opening before the engines had even powered down.

"There's my sweet baby girl-! _WHAT THE FRAG ARE YOU WEARING, YOUNG LADY?!"_

In all that time since her Academy graduation, Wheeljack really hadn't changed at all. The same scuffed armour he stubbornly refused to polish, with a few new scars on his faceplate standing testament to the fact that he couldn't walk into a bar without starting a fight. Most noticeable though was his right servo pointing ahead at her while his left one was held up a fist by his side. He wasn't trying to rip any trees up from their roots, so at least they were off to a promising start.

"Dad, if you'd just give me one klick to-"

"No, no, no, we talked about this, Strongarm!" It was pointless, of course, trying to reason with an enraged Wrecker, and this time was no exception. He practically vaulted down from the ship entrance, slamming his peds into the dirt as he stomped up to her with wild gestures sweeping over her frame. "I do _not_ want my baby walking around like a damn Kaon pleasure drone! Especially not around humans!"

Strongarm stopped herself from mentioning that of course he would know exactly what a Kaon pleasure drone looked like. It was always best to just let him tire himself out first.

"I swear to Primus, your grandsire is rollin' in his grave! I did _not_ raise my girl to walk around like she's just out the damn Well of Allsparks!" Wheeljack went on, practically tearing his vocal circuits apart.

"Believe it or not, Dad, I wasn't given much of a choice," Strongarm said, resisting the urge to fold her servos over her chest and blind Fixit in the process. That only reminded her of how Wheeljack would react to knowing there's a mech literally on top of her protoform. Even a Rust Sea hurricane would be envious of his fury.

"Oh, what, has this 'mission' gotch'a infiltratin' a strip club or somethin'?" Wheeljack asked skeptically, planting his hands on his hips in a mirror image of how she liked to assert herself. Minus the grenade hanging at his right side, of course.

Before Strongarm could at least try to assure him he wasn't stuck in a loop of her Academy days, Wheeljack started marching towards the forest in front of them. "Where's that slagger Bumblebee?! I knew that damn mech would be trouble, even when his damn vocaliser was just a lump of fraggin' out circuits I knew it!"

Strongarm's peds and vocaliser wrestled with each other, both wanting to go before the other to stop him tearing poor Bee's servos off, but for his sake her vocaliser won eventually against his tirade.

"Dad… the mission us to hunt down a bot called Airachnid," she revealed.

It was a shot in the dark, but it must have hit something in his processor. He stopped so suddenly that he almost ended up face down in the dirt, the swords at his back threatening to spill over his shoulders. Tension still wreathed his cables tightly, but when he turned back around his optics now brimmed with anything but fury.

"When you said 'savin' the galaxy', you weren't kiddin'..." Wheeljack seemed in a world of his own, glazed optics staring somewhere at Strongarm's peds. Airachnid's reputation was more corrosive than she thought, it seemed.

After a century of silent nanoklicks, the Wrecker shook himself with a fresh injection of authority in his voice, folding his servos over and staring expectantly at his daughter. "Alright, start talkin'."

Strongarm still didn't know where to start, but she eventually settled on when Twirl decided to hijack an Autobot's identity. When she got to Fixit's role and the Life Fibers, she was actually impressed that he only gave an optic twitch of slowly simmering rage as she spoke. She finished on Airachnid's supposed involvement, and was left waiting for something she had no idea how to prepare for, as she always did where her sire was concerned.

With a solid stone faceplate, Wheeljack walked closer and knelt down in the most awkward display of making optic-contact in the history of the galaxy. "You this 'Fixit' guy?"

The Minicon somehow managed to mumble under Wheeljack's scrutiny. " _Y-Yes, sir_."

Fixit's politeness only made the Wrecker's optics burn harder. "Any reason why you like dressin' my baby up like she's some kinda walkin' burlesque show?"

Strongarm could practically hear the Minicon's vents stalling and felt the overpowering urge to give him a hug. " _I-uh... I-I can't control what the Fibers do, sir, I would never have willingly_ -"

Anger flashed over Wheeljack's faceplate just before a pair of blasters replaced the flare of his optics. "YOU SAYIN' MY BABY AIN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOUR LIFE FIBER SLAG?" he demanded, aiming right at the wide crest where Fixit's eyes stretched wide.

"Dad!"

Wheeljack's scowl faded at Strongarm's indignified yell, as if trying to kill sentient armour was the most natural thing in the universe. "What?"  
"Stop trying to kill every mech that comes near me!" Strongarm said through gritted denta, servos shaking into fists by her sides.

Wheeljack's blasters reluctantly lowered, and thankfully disappeared as he muttered in low growls to himself. "Least your past boyfriends didn't try stickin' to your damn protoform..."

Strongarm sighed in relief, tapping the edge of one optic crest as she looked down at it. "You okay, Fixit?"

 _"L-Let's just say I'm very grateful I don't have any fluids to leak like this..."_ he whimpered back.

"Okaaay, that's gross." Strongarm laughed despite a slight shiver of disgust and pinched the sheer fabric of one of her gloves, hoping there'd still be some of Fixit's nerve nodes there.

"Strongarm, darlin'?" Wheeljack had his back turned, staring off into the forest ahead with a hand shielding his optics. "Were you plannin' on bringin' along any other friends?" he asked.

"Uh… no...?" Strongarm raised her eyeridges and went to stand beside her father, covering her own gaze against the glare of the midday sun.

"Cause that one looks pretty eager to catch up to us," Wheeljack said, pointing towards a break in the treeline and the bot stampeding out of it-

Strongarm rolled out in front of him, almost falling helm over peds thanks to her center of balance rebelling against her burdened shoulders. While steadying herself she managed to slip her trusty pole from subspace, holding it out in front like a staff.

"Stay back, Dad! He's a Decepticon prisoner!" Even from a distance she recognised Thunderhoof's antlers raking the air as he ran towards them both.

Rather than do anything sensible like take up defense or deploy his weapons, Wheeljack just groaned. "Sweetie, you're _really_ stretchin' my spark here."  
"Oh, what now?!" Strongarm snapped, resisting a glance over her shoulder to keep her sights on Thunderhoof.  
"That is a damn _stripper pole_ if I ever saw one. And I _have_ seen one, many times," he stated, bringing himself in front of Strongarm to point accusingly at it and completely blocking her view of Thunderhoof coming closer with every nanoklick.

"Uh, Dad?" Strongarm craned her neck over her sire's shoulder even as he was about to wrestle her weapon from her grip. "Rampaging Decepticon behind you?"

Wheeljack followed her anxious gaze, rolling his optics and holding a servo out just in time to catch Thunderhoof's antlers in his hand, the momentum only skidding his peds forward in a dust a mere inch or two. "Yeah, yeah, wait your damn turn, Bambi."

In his charge the Decepticon hadn't even been looking where he was going, and now he was so shocked at the sudden barricade that he forgot to struggle against Wheeljack's grip. When he was finally released, he almost fell flat on his aft in a daze as he rubbed at the new dent in the centre of his horn rack.

"Let us handle this, Dad..." Strongarm moaned as she shoved her sire aside, ignoring his growl as she readied her pole to strike down-

"Wait, wait, wait!" Thunderhoof held up his servos in a mock shield with only mild surprise at her drastically new appearance. "Look, just lemme' explain sumthin' here-"

Strongarm's grip tightened. "Whatever you have to say, it can wait until-"

"This ain't about me wantin' to pulverise ya' or slag like that, I swear," Thunderhoof cut in, placing a hand over his spark as if that would reassure her he wasn't out to stab them both through his horns. He must have saw Strongarm's optics go colder, from how he turned his pleading attempts to Wheeljack instead. "Look, Wrecker guy, that's a class B space cruiser, right?"

Thunderhoof pointed behind them to where the Jackhammer sat like a sleeping bloated gestalt, and Wheeljack followed his digit with a skeptical eyeridge raised. "What's it to you?"

"I know those're only used for long-aft space travel. Which means wherever you're goin' is far the frag away from this place," Thunderhoof said, still glancing aside at Strongarm in equal measures of caution and confusion- at least he wasn't openly ogling her just yet.

His leg plates shifted and she almost struck out at him, until she noticed he was now kneeling with his hands clasped together.

"Take me with ya', please! I'm beggin' here!"

'Begging' was certainly the first thing that came to Strongarm's mind while watching him. ' _I'm starting to think there's more than just Life Fibers turning everyone completely crazy lately...'_ Whether or not Fixit could hear that thought, she still felt a prickle of mutual bafflement along the covered parts of her protoform.

"Y'know, I'd laugh if it wasn't so sad," Wheeljack said through a budding chuckle, leaning his helm in towards his daughter. "Strongarm, fill me in about this clown 'fore I end up embarrassin' myself as well."

She realised she was still wielding the pole like a staff, and felt just a hint of silliness with Thunder making himself look so helpless. "He's Thunderhoof," she said, letting her pole fall into the grasp of only one servo now. "One of Cybertron's most influential crime lords, before he got caught shipping illegal modifications through a Pleasure Hive planet."

"Hey, I told ya', I have _no idea_ where those spike enlargers came from, 'aight?!" Thunderhoof asserted, breaking his pleading pose to point at Strongarm. "I was there for completely innocent interface with several femmes all at once!"

"That makes two of us," Wheeljack chuckled for a nanoklick before Strongarm's elbow connected with his side.

"And anyway, it ain't my fault I got ratted out! I…" Thunderhoof groaned as he pushed himself back upright. "I ain't interested in fightin' your friends or whatever. I won't even ask 'bout... well, that." He gestured over Strongarm's body, and she was so much closer to smacking another dent in his antlers.

"All I want is a way back to Cybertron. Primus knows what's happenin' to my hideouts, my weapon caches, whatever accounts I have left; Pit, for all I know Swindle's fraggin' femmes in my own damn berth!" He was pacing now, a backlog of anger practically steaming out of his vents.

"Well, too bad, we're not going to Cybertron," Strongarm informed him before Wheeljack could make things worse with his mouth as he usually did.

Thunderhoof almost stumbled, looking back at her like she'd just turned into a Seeker. "Why the Pit not!?"

"You don't need to know why," she answered, keeping her stasis cuffs close by in her subspace. Despite protocol's insistence at detaining all Decepticons on sight, she was tempted to just leave him for Bumblebee and the other Autobots to catch, but even she was certain Thunderhoof would try something more aggressive before she had a chance to leave.

That was what usually happened when Decepticons got that same look of desperation in their optics. "Well... hey, look! Wherever it is you're goin'..." His gaze flickered, searching for anything that could convince her. "You're gonna run inta' pirates!" he pointed out. "And there's... uncharted asteroid fields, nebulas! Not to mention Decepticons _way_ worse than me out there."

"We know," Strongarm deflected. "We're after one of them."

Wheeljack, meanwhile, was incensed all over again; marching up to Thunderhoof with a challenge tight in his cables despite the other mech towering over him. "You sayin' I don't know how to handle myself round a damn galactic quadrant, punk?"

Thunderhoof met his glare head on, almost pressing his antlers against Wheeljack's forehelm. "I'm _sayin'_ you'll stand a hell of a better chance gettin' around alive with someone who knows how to _negotiate_ with 'em."

Strongarm had to stop herself from pulling them apart before they started growling at each other like angry turbofoxes. "And just why the Pit would we trust you?" she asked, forcing Thunderhoof's attention away from her sire. Anger drained from his optics as he turned to face her.

"Two bots against one? Even _I'm_ smart enough to not risk that. Besides, this ain't about trust," he said. "This is about me tryin' to make a deal. Think 'bout what I'm offerin' here-" He held up his digits to count off the benefits. "Nav support, Decepticon protection, expert tradin' processor, and all ya' gotta do is drop me off at the nearest port to Cybertron at the end of it all."

It might have managed to convince her if she was a first-day rookie. "You don't even know what we're out to do," she reminded him. He hadn't even asked about what dangerous Decepticon they were hunting down.

"From the looks'a things… I don't need to know." He couldn't have made his optics scanning over her body more obvious if he tried, even without the smirk parting his lips like a scar and nn almost exact copy of her own earlier words coming out of them.

' _Oh, you sneaky glitch...'_

Wheeljack had at least stopped glaring at Thunderhoof like he was a mountain of Scraplets. In fact, there was something disconcertingly relaxed about his frame now as he gave the Decepticon another glance over.

"I think we should let him on," he said, confirming Strongarm's suspicions that so long spent on a rusty hull with Wreckers had done centuries worth of damage to his logic cores.

"Dad, I've let a lot of dumb things slide by in the past, but harbouring a wanted criminal was never in my blind spot," she said with only a thin veneer of vexation in her voice.

"Ah, don't be like that, baby," Wheeljack scoffed, coming to stand beside Thunderhoof while the other mech only barely hid hope spreading over his expression. "Come on, look at that face!"

"Dad, less than a klick ago you were almost about to tear his face _off._ "

"Well, I changed my mind." Wheeljack shrugged. "Think of him like... a weird uncle. Like Impactor! Remember Uncle Impactor, sweetspark?"  
"You mean the one who got court martialed and thrown out of the Wreckers for killing a squad of Decepticons even though that's exactly what the Wreckers are supposed to do?" Strongarm asked with an eyeridge raised so high it almost left her faceplate.

"Yeah, that's the one!" Wheeljack said with a tone of triumph that instantly faded. "Maybe not such a great example..." He rubbed at his chin and caught a side glance at Thunderhoof, still with dopey hopefulness all over his face. "Don't look all pleadin' at me like that, kid, it's creepy."

"You can't be serious about this, Dad..." Strongarm would have used Fixit's own servos to rub away the ache in her helm if she knew where they were.

"Hey, it's your mission, but it's still my ship," Wheeljack told her, with another cautious glance at Thunderhoof. "What're you waitin' for, an energon treat?" He threw a thumb towards the Jackhammer's docking doors. "Get in 'fore I kick you in. And wipe your damn peds!"

To what little credit he had, Thunderhoof obeyed and promptly pelted towards the ship, no doubt intending to hijack it and not knowing only Wheeljack had the engine key. Other than the pillars on her shoulders dragging her down, Strongarm had nothing but bad thoughts for the future weighing down on her. "This is an extraordinarily bad idea even for you, Dad."

Wheeljack shrugged again. "I've had worse before. Besides... I've been needin' a new coatrack." He gave her a smirk sparkling with an expert brand of mischief before boarding, even as she groaned behind him and reluctantly followed.

"You don't even _have_ any coats."

"I'll pick one up on the way; it's almost my sparkday, after all!"


	9. With Friends Like These

From all the stories Steeljaw had heard about Earth, he hadn't expected that the organic hell could be so _boring_. When he wasn't sitting around waiting for his 'team' to get off their afts, he was forced to fend off Autobots whenever he so much as set a ped outside. He couldn't even admire the forests, look out at the plains that reminded him so of his home colony without having another shadow out to ambush him.

So he stayed put. He schemed. He kept himself groomed. What else was a mech to do when his only friends on the planet were a glutton, a washed up mafioso, and a bounty hunter stupid enough to get himself stranded with his kids?

At least Thunderhoof had left early on some excuse about finding energon, leaving Steeljaw with some peace for the rest of the day. No one was concerned when the sun hung high and there was still no sign of him. At least, not until Underbite decided to ruin the illusion that he'd just disappeared.

"Thunderhoof hasn't reported back yet," he noted, likely only to stop Steeljaw from trying to scratch one of his audio panels with his leg in a disturbing display of contortionism.

"He probably got his antlers stuck in a tree again," Steeljaw reasoned with a shrug, turning to the other remaining member of their band. "Fracture, send out that other Minicon of yours to find him."

From the corner of the room he'd taken to settling himself against, the bounty hunter looked up from a small monitor embedded in his servo with an unnerving smirk. "Actually, Steeljaw... Airazor has already been doing some scouting for us." He pushed himself forward with the Minicon following behind. "I've just finished going over the footage. I think you'll be interested in this." He pressed something on Airazor's helm, which caused a beam of light to stream from his optics. The red-tinted hologram was a video feed, playing out a scene from afar involving two Autobots standing off against a femme Steeljaw couldn't recognise. He had a question readied on his glossa, but it dissolved in the bloom of light that burst out from the feed, leaving only one 'Bot behind in some... very interesting armour.

"Is that... the femme Autobot?" Underbite asked with awe that might have qualified a treason if Steeljaw wasn't dealing with the same feeling washing over himself.

"Well, I can't think of a mech who'd look as good as her in protoform..." Both the wolf's engines and vocaliser growled in a rough whistle at the sight of her.

"And who's the pink one?" Underbite asked after a thorough clearing of his vocaliser, eyeing the small frame as it seemed to literally dance circles around the Autobot, like a flitting Scraplet.

Fracture switched the feed off to the mumbled disappointment of his associates. "That bundle of joy is known as Twirl," he explained, clicking something else on Airazor's helm to pull up a different video showing Twirl detained and Strongarm (unfortunately) back in normal armour with the rest of the Autobots. "You remember that new Autobot we spotted a few breems ago?"  
"You mean the really ugly one?" Underbite asked with a slight shudder.

Fracture rolled his optics. "Yes, that one. It turns out that Twirl here managed to disguise herself as that femme and fool the 'Bots before showing her true hand here. She's been MIA since the Exodus, but according to her own vocaliser... she now works for Airachnid."

There was a crack in Fracture's voice as he said the name, causing one of Steeljaw's audio panels to twitch curiously. "Should I have heard of her?" the wolf asked.  
Fracture's lip corners twitched in a nanoklick laugh. "If you've ever had a death wish, perhaps."

Steeljaw's eyeridges furrowed in impatience. "Well, since you seem to be such an expert on her, why not enlighten us a bit more?"

Fracture gave a grin with unseen levels of smugness as Airazor handed up a small datapad. "Gladly." The bounty hunter swiped at the screen, pacing and looking up occasionally as he spoke. "Airachnid was one of the first of the Decepticon hunters, way above the likes of even Lockdown and myself. Her main responsibilities involved torture and interrogation, but her post-Exodus hobby became hunting planets to extinction. She's the reason you never find Gorgonites in the wild anymore."

"Good riddance to them..." Underbite muttered, digging a claw into one of his denta plates to dislodge a stubborn piece of metal. Fracture threw an annoyed glance at him before continuing.

"She rejoined Megatron during his final campaign on Earth, but all trace of her goes cold after that. Her last reported appearance was on this planet's moon, but se's been thought to be deceased for stellar cycles now."

Steeljaw's optics dilated with an eyeridge raised high. "So this Twirl is working for a _ghost_?"

Fracture shrugged at the superstition. "Either that or Airachnid has been in hiding, gathering her strength for a full assault on Earth- or something similarly devastating. In either case, it's likely that Twirl could assist us, if we can get her away from the Autobots. After all..." Airazor's helm beamed out a close-up of Twirl's frame, highlighting a familiar insignia on her wings. "She's still a Decepticon."

Underbite gnashed his denta, thinking over their potential new team member while Steeljaw tapped at his chin and flicked his tail. "...I still have one question," the wolf said.

Fracture let the projected image pull back into a full view of the fight. "Yes?"

Steeljaw pointed a servo at where Strongarm was standing her ground. "What the frag is she wearing?"

Fracture followed the digit, squinting hard at the image with a tilted helm. "I have... no idea."

"Whatever it is, it's hot!"

"Yes, Underbite, that's fairly obvious," Steeljaw sighed. Underbite just gnashed his denta together, almost muffling the sound of Divebomb's return as the Minicon rolled up to the gathering of larger bots.

"There you are," Fracture acknowledged, kneeling down to optic-level with Divebomb. "Thunderhoof's went wandering off- did you catch any sign of him?"

"Funny you should say that, boss.. check this out." The Minicon grinned and reached up to a button on his helm, showing his own projection to cover up the faint imprint that remained of Airazor's.

A holographic clearing filled everyone's view, with the stag practically pleading in front of Strongarm and... another mech no-one could recognise. The ambience was too full of wind to hear any voices, but with a starship behind them it was easy to guess what Thunderhoof was bargaining for.

"He's defected," Underbite astutely observed. "Wow, who would have expected it from the mech who thought he could make a Space Bridge out of scrap?"  
Steeljaw's lips curled, revealing sharp denta that glinted at the smirking mech and all his machine-grade teeth on show. "Good riddance. We don't need him," the wolf stated, hoping the starship was as old as it looked and crashed into pieces against an asteroid by now.

By his side, Fracture made a small noise of disagreement. "Perhaps not, but now we're down to three of us against six, if that other mech counts as an Autobot-"

As he made to gesture at the unknown mech, Divebomb raised a hand to interrupt. "Actually, boss... all four of 'em left Earth in the ship."

Fracture's servo failed him and he blinked. " _Four_?"

Divebomb gave a series of small nods. "Yeah, the Minicon guy was, uh... well... he... kinda _fused_ with the chick and gave her that sweet-aft armour." He rubbed at his helm while Fracture gave him a look of very demoralising disbelief.

"'Minicon guy'...? You mean the Alchemor's maintenance worker?" Steeljaw knew Fixit was the only one on board the ship not locked in a stasis pod, having had to watch the little slagger trundling up and down the corridors every day. Other than the constant cramp of dormant cables and the itch of rust, his routine served as the only way to mark the time Steeljaw spent locked up in his cage. Five hundred times, he'd had to watch him sidle past with passing glances up at the collection of criminals, completely oblivious that every single bot he passed only wished they could break free and crush him in their claws.

No wonder the little glitchspawn left the planet. Steeljaw scraped a fang against his mouth and angled his helm, unsure how to feel while Fracture questioned his Minicon further. "Did you record this… fusing?"

Divebomb's nervous laughter answered him. "Uh, no, I... kinda forgot to."

The hunter shook his helm while Steeljaw's was still cocked to one side, trying to visualise such a thing. "True or not, that's... just weird," the wolf decreed.

Underbite shrugged, nibbling on a twist of tin he held in his hand. "You don't know weird until you've been in an eating contest with a whole hoard of Scraplets."

"Didn't you _lose_ that contest?" Steeljaw asked.  
"...Shut up," Underbite muttered, shoving the rest of the tin into his frown.

 **xx**

"Damn dumbaft Auto _brats_." A trailing tree root became a victim of Chop Shop's ped as it crashed into the bark, stubbornly trying to kick it out of the soil. "Might as well have landed on fragging Aquatron and rusted ta' death... least I could have beaten up some Sharkticons..."

As he stamped onwards and muttered sullenly to himself, his right servo vibrated. Chop Shop ignored it, only to have it repeat a few klicks later. "You're glitchin' again, Scuttle," he said, as his servo shook so violently it almost popped out of its socket. Chop Shop groaned and rubbed his helm with his behaving servo. "I'm tellin' you, there is _nothing_ out-"

"No, your friend's right."

"What the-?!" Another tree root seemed to take revenge and trip Chop Shop up, leaving him sprawled in the dirt and conveniently facing the source of the voice. From atop a low tree branch, green plating clicked together and red antennae flicked out curiously above glimmering yellow optics.

Chop Shop grimaced as he stood up with his dignity at his peds. "And who in the ugly slag are you?!" he growled up at the observant bot.

"Oh, I go by Kickback," he replied, skimming down the trunk with his four legs clattering together. Now level with each other, even with his legs stretched out Kickback's height barely came to Chop Shop's chest. "And you must be..." He held two digits to a contemplative frown, before snapping them over a triumphant smile. "Chop Shop, right?"

The spider scowled, the legs on his servos snapping together aggressively. "And what's that to you?"

Kickback furrowed his eyeridges, shrinking back slightly from Chop Shop and folding his servos over his chest. That didn't hide the fact they were both shaking. "Well, from the looks of things, our... would-be friends from the Alchemor aren't too fond of us."

Chop Shop grumbled, but one of his optics widened in cautious intrigue. "You mean those other sad afts callin' themselves Decepticons?" he asked.

Kickback nodded, antennae quivering together. "You're not with them, so… I assume-"

Chop Shop shattered through Kickback's lowered guard with a snarl. "Don't _assume_ anything about me, lad."

Kickback's resolve melted for a klick, faceplate falling into fear, but after a few moments it re-hardened into a cobbled-together smirk. "Alright, alright, keep your limbs on," he huffed, earning another contemptuous scowl from the spider. "I'm not trying to start a fight here. We're both mature and... intelligent mechs, I'm sure. And I think we'd be better suited working together than at each others vocalisers like the others."

Chop Shop would have been able to consider the offer better if his Minicons weren't all bristling at the sound of it. He shook himself to shut them up, still growling faintly through his denta. "You suggestin' some kind of... partnership?"

Kickback flicked one of his antennae in a lazy nod. "With all those Minicons you're carrying, you must have experience with working in a team."

"Wrong. I don't play well with others," Chop Shop informed, ignoring the second round of annoyed chattering from his limbs.

Kickback shrugged. "Few Cons do, without a big bad Megatron to keep us together. But you seem like my best chance of getting anywhere other than the Allspark."

Chop Shop almost laughed at how easily believable that was; it was a wonder such a scrawny mech could even hold his own frame up, let alone live much longer than a decacycle by himself. "Is that so? And what exactly would _you_ bring to the table here?"

Despite Chop Shop's cutting tone, Kickback smirked confidently. "I know where the others are camped out. _And_ where they keep their energon. With all those Minicons to feed, you'll be needing a lot of it sooner or later."

And just on cue, Chop Shop's fuel tank gave a hollow groan that shook through the trees and his own frame, an echo of his Minicons' gnawing hunger. The spider would have scowled to himself even without Kickback's smug face begging for a fist to hit it.

"I'll take that as a yes, then?" Kickback reached a servo out, claws spaced apart in the illusion of a friendly handshake.

Still trying to ignore his empty tanks, Chop Shop looked at the servo like it was infected with Cosmic Rust. "... Just why the Pit should I trust you?" he growled.  
"Who said this was about trust?" Kickback asked, antennae waggling. "Besides, I got no-one to betray you to, and no reason to do so."

It made sense, which just made Chop Shop even more suspicious. "You've not got some stupid scheme for taking over the planet, have you?"  
Kickback tilted his helm with raised eyeridges. "What would be wrong with that?" he asked.  
Chop Shop looked away for a klick, thoughts of what to answer with weighing down his optics before he decided on one of them.

"...Let's just say my family doesn't like competition."

Curiously, Kickback just smiled and shrugged after his own moment of thought. "I only care about getting off this dirtworld. Whoever rules it is someone else's problem."

His servo was still stretched out towards Chop Shop and the spider still eyed it hesitantly, digits clicking and his own servo protesting when he tried to move it forwards. Critter didn't like having to touch others unless it was to hurt them, which made him being a hand unbelievably inconvenient. Scuttle seemed more accommodating at least, even if his plating flinched away from Kickback when Chop Shop made his hand clap against the mantis' claws.

"Well... you've got yourself a teammate, then," he said, mirroring Kickback's own smile with twice as many fangs. If only his carrier could see him now, she'd have brought him back by her side in a sparkbeat. But Chop Shop knew he had to bide his time for her approval.

After all, he still had a lot of work to do, and his birthplace of Regulon Four was still light years away.


	10. Three's A Nuisance

By some miracle of Primus they were still able to lift off with Thunderhoof's aft and antlers dragging them down, even as they scraped against either sides of the Jackhammer's walls (the antlers, not his aft). Strongarm almost managed to fool herself that she was off on a road trip, with high-grade and fireworks loaded up in the cargo bay and nothing to do but sit through it all. But her mission briefing was burning a hole through her subconscious and subspace, and she forced herself to pull the files out before something got scorched.

Wheeljack neglected his steering to look over at the datapad in her hand. "What's that, the twentieth anniversary edition of the Tyrest Accord?"

Strongarm fought the urge to lob it at his helm and tell him to read it himself. "Actually, it's Airachnid's profile," she said as pure matter-of-fact. "Homework helps when you're going up against someone with a record as long as Megatron's."

Wheeljack let out a low whistle, and his grip on the ship's controls tightened. "Yeah, Airachnid was... she was a piece of work. I didn't see her much on Earth, but she sure kept the Wreckers busy during the war..." He allowed himself a deep sigh, and Strongarm saw his lip scars purse together. She was tempted to ask him about her, trusting firsthand experience more than the account of a random data clerk, but he was smirking a nanoklick later as a wistful tone swept through his voice.

"Hot as the Pit, though..."

"Dad!" Strongarm's fist collided with her father's shoulder, but he just laughed as if her hands were made of cotton.

"I'm just sayin'!" he defended through chuckles, batting away Strongarm's other attempts to dent his plating. "Even with the fangs and the whole 'string up Autobots by their jumper cables' thing she had goin' on." He made gestures with his servos as he spoke, but his cables went stiff when he saw Strongarm glaring at him from her passenger seat. "Uh, n-not that that'll happen to you, sweetspark."

"'Preciate the confidence, Dad." Strongarm sighed and pushed up from her seat to continue reading near the back of the ship instead. Airachnid's list of crimes alone filled more than three screens on her pad, many of them torture and murder (for some reason killing bots in battle never counted as that, but Airachnid didn't seem the type to be in the middle of a charging horde of soldiers anyway). The Alchemor's restraints would be too kind for her- if she was caught alive, she'd be given a cell block on Garrus-9 all to herself.

"What about you, Bambi, you left behind any hot femmes down there?" Wheeljack called back to Thunderhoof. Strongarm hadn't taken her optics off the Decepticon for the first few klicks of taking off, but it seemed all he did back here was sit and fiddle with his digits. She was sure Fixit would tell her if something was amiss anyway, with such huge optics spanning over her chest.

"Well, uh… I guess..." There was a vicious scraping sound as Thunderhoof must have scratched one of his horns against the Jackhammer's ceiling. "There was a Corvicon on the Alchemor, but..."

"She already taken?" Wheeljack guessed.  
"Well, more like she's about twice my size," Thunderhoof answered. "Might make interface a lil' awkward..."

Wheeljack shrugged in his seat. "Size never stopped me before."

"Ew, Dad!" Strongarm gagged and shook her helm to get the mental image out of it- even Fixit seemed to shudder over her protoform. Thunderhoof meanwhile still fidgeted beside her, like an overweight and impatient sparkling.

"What're we goin' after, anyway?" he asked.  
" _We_ are tracking down a dangerous Decepticon," Strongarm said, with forceful gestures first to herself and then back to him. " _You_ are going to a jail cell in Iacon as soon as we go past Cybertron."

"Aw, don't scare him, sweetie," Wheeljack called back, not seeing his daughter's pout.

"I'm just telling the truth. Not like we could get away with carrying around a convicted criminal even if we wanted to." She sank back in her seat with folded servos underneath Fixit's optic planes. They blinked now and again, betraying the Minicon over her, so she thought better of covering them up.

Thunderhoof at least stopped fidgeting for now, leaning forward with tilted eyeridges. "Look, I get that ya' don't like me-

"Whatever gave you that impression?" Strongarm mumbled, digits tightening on her plating.

"But I ain't as much a slimy backstabber as most 'Cons, 'aight? I don't bite the servo that fuels. And..." He scratched the back of his neck and dropped his gaze. "Well, believe it or not, I actually wanna help yas."

Strongarm snorted as skepticism flooded in. "There's nothing in it for you."

Thunderhoof gave his own feral response, a growl following the push of air through his olfactories as his optics flashed an LED smirk. "Well, for one thing... I get ta' look at _you_ in some smokin' hot armour."

Luckily for Strongarm, Wheeljack's selective audios decided to kick into action. "What was that?" he demanded over his shoulder, not able to see the furious blush struggling against the scowl on his daughter's faceplate.

"Uh, nothin, nothin!" Thunderhoof sounded about as ramshackle innocent as a Turian mercenary caught near a mounted sniper rifle, but Wheeljack didn't seem to be in the mood for leaving his seat. His vocaliser grunted brief disapproval before he turned his attention back to steering. They still had to leave the Sol system before they could activate the quantum engines that would soar them across light years, and interstellar debris could easily end the mission before they'd even left Earth's gravitational pull.

Even with that in mind, Strongarm wouldn't have minded a stray satellite colliding with Thunderhoof's seat. "I'm not even going to touch on all the things wrong with that statement," she muttered, wrenching her helm away from the Decepticon and studying one of the airlock doors instead, partly wondering how easy it would be to shove a mech out of them.

Thunderhoof at least wisened up to lowering his vocaliser as he continued harassing her. "What, you got an angry boyfriend or somethin'?"

Even as Strongarm was hit with memories of Sideswipe and the fact that she'd just left him behind for Primus-knows how long, Thunderhoof only got a grunt and aggravated scuff of plating in reply. Not even the fiery crackling of Strongarm's EM field managed to put him off annoying her, though.

"What's, uh… the deal with the get up, anyway?" he asked, waving the shadow of a servo over her coiled frame. "I mean, I ain't complainin', but..."

Strongarm suspended her sulk just long enough to throw him as much as she was willing to explain. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

His smirk showed cracked shards of denta to her. "Try me."

Strongarm vented, stretched her servos out, and compressed the past two days into a single sentence she prayed would shut him up. "I'm wearing a Minicon infested with alien parasites that force him to become skimpy armour when in contact with my energon."  
Even Fixit seemed to laugh to himself, with static prickling across the nerve nodes stretched over her protoform. It worked for a few nanoklicks, Thunderhoof's eyeridges battling with each other and his optics fizzling towards the floor, but his faceplate soon solidified back into criminal lechery. "Kinky," he said.

Before Strongarm could prepare a fist for hitting the smirking metal, the Jackhammer's comm system blipped into life and Bumblebee's tired voice came from the array. _"Strongarm, you there? Either our computers are glitching or we're getting the signal of a certain Decepticon right next to yours and flying a thousand miles above us."_

She was almost expecting to hear Sideswipe's voice instead, and couldn't decide which mech she would have preferred. Even if those thousand miles saved her from a direct confrontation with her commander, Strongarm was still wary about approaching the comms.

"Guess I'm just invisible now you're a high and mighty commander, huh Bee?" Wheeljack grunted into the receiver, only half joking. Bumblebee held back a retort, waiting for Strongarm's answer before anything least at the comms she could put distance between herself and the horned rogue who would earn her a court martial back on Cybertron.

"Yeah, uh... you don't have to worry about Thunderhoof anymore, sir." Her nervousness made it almost sound like a question, one that was worth asking but impossible to answer just then.

The true depth of Bumblebee's sigh was cut off by the system's frequency range. _"Do I want to know why?"_

"Let's just say he managed to convince _one of us_ to let him hitchhike."

"I even got a guide to the galaxy stashed somewhere in my subspace," Thunderhoof quipped, all slouching smugness knowing that not even flying Decepticons could reach him behind the Jackhammer's tonnes of metal hide.

By contrast, Bumblebee sounded like he was dodging rabid turbofoxes as he spoke. " _Look, Strongarm, I know you enough to trust your judgement on this, but... well, just be careful. You're already going after one Decepticon, you don't need another giving you trouble."_

Still seated, Thunderhoof threw a glance like a grenade over at where Strongarm was standing. "What's that 'sposed to mean?"

Strongarm forced her optics not to roll at his scandalised tone, silently telling him to shut up with a digit over her mouth. "I've survived worse than babysitting one criminal, Bee. You know that."

Wheeljack huffed in agreement. "Like babysittin' your brothers on Griffin Rock." Then a realisation made his optics pop wide as a hand smacked against his helm. "Oh scrap, I forgot to visit them!"

" _Yeah, I know..."_ Bumblebee admitted, oblivious to Wheeljack on the verge of losing the right to his 'sire of the century' energon mug. _"But I'm still your commanding officer for as long as you're in the Sol system, so I get to nag as much as I want 'till then."_

Strongarm lidded her optics and couldn't help smiling at the concern. ' _Just like the carrier I never had…_ ' She didn't say it aloud, in case Wheeljack noticed and gave himself a whole other layer of family guilt to deal with. The less ever said about her mystery carrier, the better for both of them.

Thankfully Bumblebee continued relaying before she could dwell too long on the thought. _"I don't need to tell you to keep a close optic on your hitchhiker, but... at the same time, see if you can get any 'Con intel out of him while we've got him._ _Should be easy enough..."_ The immaturity still clogged in his spark bubbled up in a snort of laughter. _"He's got less processing power than an Earth cleaning drone-"_

Now Thunderhoof made the effort to rise from his bench, thudding past Strongarm towards the source of the insult with optics and olfactories flaring in the artificial atmosphere. "That Beeboy tryin'ta' start a fight?!"

Wheeljack seemed amused right up until the mech started trying to pry Bumblebee's voice out of the comms array itself. "Watch the damn equipment, you-!" Still trying to keep one servo on the controls, he leaned across to wrench Thunderhoof away from the array, but one hand of hardened Wrecker plating couldn't even budge several tonnes of offended beast 'Con punching into delicate transmission circuitry. Bumblebee's voice was already reduced to stutters and choked static, yet Wheeljack was still trying to shove the 'Con aside.

Strongarm did the smart thing and removed herself to the back of the ship, trying to calculate the best way to intervene that wouldn't result in the two mechs crushing her into a blue and white paint stain on the walls. "Uh... Fixit? Any ideas?"

The optic planes under her chin blinked rapidly. " _You mean… other than abandon ship?"_

Before she could launch herself in though, the scuffle abruptly ended with Thunderhoof tearing out a speaker with his denta. It still vainly broadcasted a scramble of static through the wires hanging from his mouth, and eventually fell to the floor when the mech's jaw slackened and he realised what he'd just done.

"Uh... whoops?" he said through a fizzling bundle of broken cables.

Wheeljack looked at the 'Con as if he was a sparkling caught smearing armour with crayon marks. "Congratulations, Bambi. That comm system survived Kup's sparkday and Ironhide's stag party, but as soon as it sees your ugly mug it shatters into pieces."

Strongarm forced herself between them both, her back to Thunderhoof's guilty face. "Dad, calm down, can you fix it?"

Wheeljack huffed an irritation of air. "Course I can, but we'll need to land for repairs-" A shock of turbulence cut him off as he was thrown against the crackling comms array, and the cockpit shuddered all around them. Thunderhoof staggered backwards and landed against the far wall while Strongarm held tightly onto an emergency handle.

"What... the Pit?!" Her tension cables struggled to counteract the ship's speed acting against her, even with Life Fibers supplementing her efforts. Wheeljack managed to drag himself over to the main control panel and bring up a status screen that blared red.

"It's the left engine, there's somethin'..." This time the lurch propelled him into his pilot seat, and he buckled himself in with shaking digits before he was thrown off again. "For frag's sake... we're gonna have to do an emergency landin'! Brace yourself, sweetspark!"

"Oh, good call, Dad, cause I was just gonna dance around the cockpit the whole time!" Strongarm yelled against the scream of the engines- or engine singular, considering only one was working. All Thunderhoof was capable of was desperate shrieking for his carrier as they all plummeted towards the unsuspecting surface of the only body nearby- the Earth's moon.


	11. Six Loonies On The Moon(ie)

The blaring screech of the hull breach warning persisted despite the vacuum of space flooding through the ship. At least Fixit's hesitant whimpers drowned out some of the siren's whines, and his tense wires kept Strongarm's cramped digits clamped around the door handle even when she finally felt like she didn't have to hold on for her spark's sake.

Optics slitting open, taking in the snapped circuitry and trails of smoke from broken machines and panels littering one end of the ship, she only noticed what was weighing her chest down when she felt something groaning and- yes, drooling- against the uncovered protoform. Shoving against the huge rack of antlers pinning her down only made Thunderhoof groan louder and burrow deeper into her cleavage, as if he could hide from the mayhem.

"Don't wanna get up… five more klicks, Mama..." He only got five more _nano_ klicks of peace before a hard knee in his stomach finally shifted him off of her and poor shuddering Fixit. Now free of several tonnes of lazy concussed Decepticon, Strongarm managed to pull herself upright with a mighty heave just as she heard Wheeljack's voice from somewhere in the chaos.

"So much for starship insurance… you alright, Strongarm?" There was only a slight strain to his voice, and she sighed in relief even as her bulky shoulders stubbornly tried to drag her back down to the floor

"Yeah... just a few moments of sheer terror I'll be reliving in recharge." With far more effort than she should have needed she craned her neck back towards the source of her sire's whispered curses, steadying herself on a support strut that sharply bent down from the ceiling when it should have been holding the damn thing up. Wheeljack must have been thrown back from his seat during the crash, currently sitting upside down against a wall with his legs dangling over his helm. She reached forward to grab a ped and pull her sire forward into a more dignified position before she toppled over him. He staggered as he regained his footing on the sloped ground, looking fresh from a Praxus bar crawl complete with optics looking in two different directions at once. They managed to re-orient as he shook his helm, carnage and ruin blurring together into something he could worry about much later.

"Ey, Bambi! You still with us?" he called out as he slid down the incline towards what was left of the steering wheel, narrowly avoiding scorched armour from a burst of sparks to his right.

"He's up here, Dad," Strongarm said, nudging a ped at the frame still twitching and moaning mournfully on the floor. She couldn't have done too much damage to him, but the sight made her wish she'd pulled her leg back just a little before slamming it into him.

"Ugh... issat you, Unicron?" Thunderhoof mumbled, pushing himself up on a servo as the other rubbed at the shallow dent in his abdomen.

"See the crash didn't do too much damage to his processor, at least," Wheeljack muttered, waiting for the thankfully intact diagnostic system to finish scanning. Still swimming in dizziness, Thunderhoof grabbed onto the nearest support to help himself stand- first Strongarm's leg, and then her servo as she rolled her optics and offered it to him.

"So, Dad, what the frag just happened?" she asked, letting Thunderhoof regain his composure in his own time with his antlers pressed against one of the crumpled walls.

"Well, for one thing, your new boyfriend's just made my comm system as useful as a Corvicon in a diamond mine," Wheeljack reported, kicking the shattered console as if it would suddenly spring back to life with the threat of his wrath.

"That doesn't explain how the engines decided to break mid-flight, though," Strongarm pointed out, too paranoid about the whole situation to even bother arguing with the disturbing boyfriend assumption.

"No, it doesn't..." Wheeljack frowned, checking the only monitor that wasn't littered with cracks all over its surface. "And another thing, we're only a few thousand miles out from Earth. Must have crashed on its moon with the lower gravity slowin' the impact. Talk about a lucky landin'."

Strongarm hissed through her vents, not feeling lucky at all. "What's the plan, then?"

"Check what the frag went wrong with the engines and then fix the comm system," Wheeljack said, wringing his digits together as he stretched his servos out. "But first... I'm gonna go have a nap."

" _Dad_!"

"Naps make everything better, sweetspark!" Wheeljack asserted, already digging his way to his quarters at the mostly-intact rear of the ship. "It's a proven fact, don't argue with science. I learned not to when I lost that one bet with Perceptor..."

Strongarm was still in the shock of remembering that dealing with her sire was like dealing with a five vorn old sparkling- which actually explained a lot about how she felt about Sideswipe, but she had better things to worry about for now. "And what the Pit are _we_ supposed to do?!" she asked, throwing a servo in Thunderhoof's direction while the mech tried to keep himself balanced against dizziness and the weight of his own antlers throwing him every which way.

Wheeljack gripped the doorway to his quarters as he turned to face her, practically hanging from it. "Uh... explore? Make yourself a little more decent? Smack him round the head a little?" He shrugged with one of his well worn lopsided smiles. "You're a big girl, Strongarm, ya' don't need me always tellin' you what to do. It's not like there's anythin' dangerous around. Just... don't kill the hitchhiker. And no flirting!" He was barricaded behind the door before she could protest. With a pout threatening to show itself and her peds itching to kick something, she stormed past the jammed-open cargo door and into the bare expanse of dust and darkness waiting outside.

"Unbelievable..." She crossed her servos just below Fixit's optics and kicked a fair-sized rock far enough to almost lift off into space, while Thunderhoof grunted as he followed her into the lunar wasteland. He shortly wandered off on his own, making a path around the wreckage of the Jackhammer before stopping short.

"Woah..." The Decepticon's voice, eerily subdued from afar, prompted Strongarm to go in his direction even though her heels struggled to find purchase in the dust under them. Fixit was the first to see whatever it was that caught Thunderhoof's attention, his shock prickling along her protoform, but at first all she saw was the hissing wreck of what should have been carting them to the nearest outpost in the Kuiper Belt. Then she rounded the ship and saw; beyond the plume of smoke coiling from the Jackhammer's engines and its warped hull was an immense orb interrupting the lonely blackness of space. She walked slowly with peds crunching on millennias worth of celestial rock over to Thunderhoof's side, optics widening as they tried to match the size of the planet dominating the horizon.

Whips of white and grey swirled above endless blue splashed with green, scorched pale orange and pure ice nesting at the poles, submerged in darkness and sparkling with the life of a million cities; from this vantage point, Earth looked as beautiful as any one of Cybertron's ancient lost colonies. Even without thinking of her team somewhere leagues below on the patchwork of continents and remembering how often she'd cursed it, Strongarm regretted having to leave it behind so soon. She finally understood why her sire had always been so fond of it, if this was what he saw every time he came and went.

Even Thunderhoof, the one who almost created a black hole trying to leave the planet, had to look on in awe. At least for the few klicks he could keep his wandering optics off her chestplates. Strongarm counted, and it took a full klick before he noticed her (and Fixit) glaring at him.

"What are _you_ looking at?" she asked, while he pulled off the worst impression of an innocent mech she'd ever seen, complete with avoiding her stare and rubbing the back of his neck.

"Well, since ya' asked-"

"Don't answer, actually." If anything, she should have been blaming Fixit for making her so _attention-grabbing_ in the first place.

"I'm not thinkin' anythin' _bad,_ " Thunderhoof protested, actually managing to look at her optics now."Well, not _too_ bad, but... ya' look a lil' pale, is all."

Strongarm snorted, shielding her chest with firmly crossed servos. "Maybe it's cause we all almost died in a fiery burst of fuel and ship plating?" she suggested.

"Well, ya' got a point, but-" Whether Thunderhoof had said anymore and she just didn't notice or he'd stopped talking altogether, Strongarm couldn't tell past a sudden wave of nausea and a sharp pain in her energon tanks. She lurched, forced over by the intense pain and a hollowness that didn't belong, staggering in the dust as her helm felt like it would fly right off her shoulders. At least, Thunderhoof's expression made that seem the case.

"Uh... you okay?" Either he really was as slow as he looked, or he was just terrified of her still being able to bodyslam him while her internals tried to chew each other to pieces.

"I'm ffffine... just... a little dizzy..."

According to Fixit's gasp along her own fading consciousness and his low whimper, she was not fine at all. " _Oh, no.._. _Strongarm, I'm so sorry, forgive me, I... I forgot about-_ "

"Forgot _what?!_ " she growled, practically clawing at her spark chamber as it burned with her processor. Just before she fell to her knees, the armour encasing her suddenly shifted, covering much more of her protoform than it usually did. She felt her nudity recede; now her chestplates and midsection weren't on full display for the whole galaxy, and though the plating looked thicker and more robust it felt more fragile than the coverings that held on tight to those few inches of her protoform. Her nausea slipped away the more her plates moved, until there was barely a shadow left behind of the agony that had been clawing her helm apart. Looking down at her reconfigured state with rapidly clearing optics, she also noted something like the skirt that Twirl wore around her hips- not as obnoxiously bright or wide, thank Primus, but still unnaturally flaring out over her thighs.

At least she wasn't about to die in a dust grave now, and Wheeljack would certainly appreciate her following his suggestion of decency (as ironic as it was coming from him). Most of all, she felt the usual weight of her winglets on her back but they weren't nearly as heavy as Fixit made them. The relief shook through her so much that she actually accepted help to stand from Thunderhoof without the usual warranted wariness.

Still recovering from the attack, Strongarm's voice was slow to arrive in her vocaliser. "You... could do that this whole time?" she asked Fixit, who was still whimpering away as he finalised his new form on her frame.

 _"It's the low-energy state of the Life Fibers, when they're not..."_ He paused, gulping somehow without a mouth. _"Well… draining your energon."_

Clarity hit Strongarm with another pulse of dizziness, implications chasing realisation in a furious race to her vocaliser. "You've been _drinking_ from me?!"

 _"N-Not me, it's the Fibers!_ " he protested, practically shivering all over her. _"T-They need it from the host, else they don't work properly. You can still wear them like this... they just won't help you in combat."_

Even if her systems weren't about to shut down now, Strongarm still felt like strangling Primus. Not only did these things steal her dignity and turn her into an unbalanced laughing stock, they were also actively out to kill her.

 _"I'm so sorry, Strongarm,"_ Fixit went on blindly. _"It's been so long since I've been worn by anyone, I, uh... I guess I've forgotten a few of the safety procedures..."_

Strongarm breathed in deep, ignoring the grit that clogged in her vents as she tried to calm herself down with empty air cycles. "Anything _else_ you'd like to share before I end up having another near-death experience?" she asked through clenched denta.

 _"Just that... I won't do it again. I promise,"_ he said meekly.

Thunderhoof, silent with a raised eyeridge through the heated exchange, now chose to voice what was troubling him now. "So it's a... _vampire_ Minicon infested with alien parasites?" he asked.

While what energon she had left was still boiling, Strongarm didn't bother with telling him to shut the frag up.


	12. Beginning of a Beautiful(?) Friendship

Leaving behind Thunderhoof to scuff circles in the dust, Strongarm lost sight of the Jackhammer after five klicks of walking in (what she hoped was) a straight line. Every so often she'd pause to knock rivulets of grit off her peds, readjusting the heels which didn't ache as much as they should have on such unstable terrain. Whatever she was looking for, she wouldn't be slowed down by a pebble stuck under her protoform.

"You haven't said anything for a while, Fixit," she noted, tapping her foot against a rock to let dust trickle out of her armour seams.

" _Things get a bit awkward when you've almost made someone go offline..._ " the Minicon said quietly, optic planes downcast to the grey plains stretching out all around them.

Strongarm huffed and cracked a small smile as she set her cleaned ped back down. "Don't worry about it. Really. I'm not mad at you," she assured. "There's worse things than being dressed like a stripper in front of your sire, and it's not like my spark was about to give out."

Fixit's nodes prickled along her protoform, but his voice was still solemn. _"I wouldn't blame you if you were...it seems all I've done recently is make your life difficult."_

"Don't be like that," she chided firmly, resuming her trek against the barren wastes. "Look at it this way, you're the reason I'm finally off Earth again. Besides, I'm... excited. Tracking down an infamous Decepticon refugee as a walking battlestation, what's not to-"

As she spoke the horizon started to rise in a sudden series of jagged spires, and the extent of the sight shift froze her vocaliser.

Fixit was the one to voice her thoughts. _"Holy slag..._ "

Before them was a battlefield of scale to rival the Hydrax Graveyard. Mangled scrap and looming struts stabbed the ground, monoliths from something decades ago frozen in time. Chains dangled from starship ruins but didn't sway, abandoned weaponry with their shells and bullet casings were sprinkled around them. But most jarring were the empty corpses scattered in a macabre carpet- drained Insecticon shells, Vehicon husks, all left to be buried beneath their own rust in a forgotten galaxy. The whole scene both blended in perfectly with its dead surroundings, and seemed to have been thrown carelessly onto the plateau by Primus so no-one would ever find it.

" _Where did all this come from?"_ Fixit asked as Strongarm stepped over the invisible boundary between emptiness and extinction, hesitantly kicking a submerged plate of metal as if it would spring up in her faceplate.

"I think I have an idea..." Still gazing at the landscape of worn destruction, she reached into her subspace for her datapad. She skipped far ahead in Airachnid's extensive profile, flicking through accounts of her many duties for the Decepticons- interrogator, torturer, hunter, Megatron's own second in command at one point. She stopped at the sparse details of her time on Earth, glazing her optics over the confirmation that her last known whereabouts, after she was infected by a mysterious virus, was Earth's only moon.

Fixit read along as well, and gulped as he looked out again at the proof of the spider's residence. "Well, I guess this is where we'll pick up her trail..." Strongarm muttered, slipping the pad back into her subspace. With her scanners made less effective by all the accumulated dust she had to rely on her peds to sift through the grisly wreckage; pushing aside dented armour remains, wiping dirt off of broken sigils, searching for any clue that could guide her on the right path (though that rose the question of whether going after Airachnid in the first place was at the end of that path).

She was halfway through the ruins when Fixit's voice crackled in her audios. _"Strongarm... I can feel another spark signiture nearby."_

"Thunderhoof?" she guessed with a quirked eyeridge, looking behind her and almost expecting to see the Decepticon with his antlers stuck on something.

" _No, no, it's... in the rubble_ ," Fixit said, struggling to keep his voice level. _"Underneath that ship hull to the right._ " He angled the crest of his optics in that direction, and Strongarm went to the rusted chassis while stretching her digits out to lift it up. The light armour encasing her servos actually made it easier to use her strength than with her bulky standard plating, even without the Life Fibers weaved within augmenting it. As a result she pulled the empty husk up with much more force than she'd meant to, flipping it over and sending it rolling away in plumes of dust. She coughed past a cringe as her fans tried to rid themselves of the grit clouds, and when they eventually cleared they revealed a one-armed drone corpse slumped on what looked like a makeshift bench, once purple armour now coated in a thick layer of grime and the Decepticon insignia almost chipped away. Even looking at the rust gathered in his joints made Strongarm's ache by proxy.

"Just looks like another dead Vehicon to me," she said, poking a shoulder plate as she knelt down to examine.

Fixit also looked over the body, humming curiously. " _Check under the visor to be sure."_ She did, digging her digits under the stubborn mask and pulling against the creaking hinges to reveal the usual blank faceplate drones were built with. Compared to the rest of the armour the silver metal was virtually untouched, completely seamless aside from a closed slit for a mouth and two hollows for half-shielded optics glowing a faint violet-

Strongarm leapt back so suddenly the visor flipped down again with a puff of dirt.

"Holy... he's still online!"

 _"Told you,_ " Fixit quipped, and she almost wished she could smack him just a little.

"Should we wake him up?" she asked, still shuffling back from the stasis-locked frame. The drone was in no shape to fight her, but she wasn't willing to risk the chance of his systems rebooting out of nowhere while she was in punching range.

" _If he's been here with Airachnid, he might know where she is_ ," Fixit advised. It would be their only current lead on her location, aside from the Autobots managing to extract anything else from Twirl, and even if he didn't know he could be a valuable resource in finding her weaknesses when the time came to confront her.

"He's still a Decepticon, though," Strongarm said, reaching into her subspace again for something much bigger than a datapad. Her improvised weapon (that she still couldn't believe was a stripper pole of all things) barely fit in the pocket, but until she could fashion some kind of harness she'd just have to make room for it.

Now armed as well as she could be (a rather dark observation, considering the Vehicon only had one), Strongarm used one end of the pole to nudge the slumbering frame from a distance. She had plenty of experience waking up hungover bots locked up after a night of groping and brawling strangers, and she figured interrupting stasis lock wouldn't be much different. The hard thud in his chest must have done something to his dormant spark; there was a high-pitched whirr, a sudden flash of light through the optic slit of his dirt-caked visor, and a squeal of chronically neglected joints as the mech regained sentience and sprang to his peds.

"I wasn't sleeping on the job again, ma'am, I-I swear!" he stuttered, servo shaking more from fear than years of doing nothing. Most drones sounded the same, but so long without use seemed to give his vocaliser a rusty edge, as well as removing some of the echo behind his words. Still rendered almost blind from his filthy visor, he dropped to his knees in a frantic plea. "Y-You wouldn't want to drain me, miss, I-I-I got bad energon, it's all stuck in my fuel lines-"

Finally something must have registered in his processor, as it shook off the decades of dust covering it. "You're not Airachnid," he noticed.

Strongarm couldn't help an urge for sarcasm. "Gee, did you figure that out all by yourself?"

Either he didn't hear her, or he was too consumed by the confusion that must have been swamping him as he looked out over the metal massacre all around him. "Where... where is she?" he asked, wiping his optic slit clean. "Do you work for her?"

"No, but I was hoping _you_ could tell me where she is," Strongarm said, one hand on her hip while the other hefted her pole over her shoulder.

Glazing a slow gaze twice then thrice over the corpses so identical to him littering the ground, there were a few moments of silence before he spoke. "My chronometer's broken..." he said quietly. "All I remember is Airachnid and Insecticons... and hunger. We didn't have any energon rations, so she made us... drain each other, else we'd go offline..." His voice faded, and his remaining servo hung limp by his side as his neck cables lost the strength to hold his helm up. It was a miracle he had enough energy to even be standing, and Strongarm almost caught herself pitying him as she realised all the rumours about Airachnid becoming a cannibal during her exile were true. But a nanoklick later his cables snapped straight again as he seemed to only properly notice her at that moment. "Who are you?" he asked, more with innocent curiosity than suspicion.

"My name is Strongarm, I'm-" She stopped herself, careful not to reveal any faction clues and grateful that Fixit didn't show any Autobot sigil on her. "I ended up stranded here with my crew," was all she revealed. "And from what I can tell, you've been in stasis for a long while. The war's over, and the Decepticons lost." That was a massively simplified summary, but she didn't have time to give a history lesson. "You got a name?"

The glare of his visor dimmed slightly, and his peds scuffed together in what seemed liked embarrassment. "...Steve," he eventually said.

Fixit managed to hide a bubbling laugh in a snort, while Strongarm only felt her eyeridges rise. "That's an... interesting designation for a drone," she said slowly.

"I guess it was just a nickname, but it's all I can remember," he explained, scratching behind his helm with his remaining hand. "Everything before Airachnid... got to me is a blur, mostly, and most of what happened afterward is just blank and-" The limb behind his head froze, and his helm leaned forwards as if he was squinting at her. "That's some... _interesting_ armour you've got..." He strode toward her much faster than he should have been capable of, bending down as if to study the skirt and boots of her uniform without her permission.

"Hey, what are you-!"

"I'm just checking something, honest!" Steve said defensively as she stepped away from him. He picked himself back up and somehow managed to not seem like a pervert as he turned his attention on her chest and the bright blue lapels of Fixit's optics- at least he kept his distance now. "...Airachnid had a set just like that, you know," he revealed after some nanoklicks of consideration.

 _"She had a Kamuicon!?"_ Fixit's outburst sent Steve leaping backwards in shock and colliding with a pile of discarded limbs and shed Insecticon chitin. He vented heavily, almost snapping his brittle chest armour in half before he managed to calm himself.

"Hers didn't... talk, though," he panted. "At least... I never heard it if it did." He rubbed his helm, then did a double take at Fixit's optics. "Wait a klick... are you an Autobot?" he asked hesitantly, and he might have had a blaster out by now if he even had one to deploy.

Knowing he was weaponless, Strongarm drew attention to her pole by switching it to her other shoulder. "Does that matter to you?" she asked. Usually she wouldn't expect a drone processor to detect the underlying threat, but this one had already proved himself with more intelligence than any she'd come across. Maybe they were just built smarter in the past.

Steve made some kind of rumbling sound in his vocaliser. "Well... no, I suppose it doesn't anymore," he said. "I guess if both Megatron and Airachnid are gone... I don't have anywhere to go." He clenched his digits, casting one last mournful look at his savage surroundings before he vented a sigh. "If you're really looking for Airachnid... I think I can help you. As long as you can promise me energon, and safety."

 _'The two things in shortest supply around here,'_ she thought to herself, but she nodded anyway. Wheeljack could be stingy when it came to rations, but even he couldn't deny starving walking proof of preservation instinct a proper chance to refuel.

"I'll follow your lead then, Strongarm," he said, with a noticeable change in his tone, a hope that wasn't there before. "It's what I'm programmed for, anyway-" He paused as his optics caught a glint of something in the limbs scattered around his peds. "Hey, there's my servo!" he exclaimed, reaching down to pluck out a mostly identical arm from the rest of the discarded struts. He held the end up to his vacant joint, making sure it fit, and then what followed was something Strongarm wished she didn't have to see; like downing a glass of high-grade, Steve tipped the open end of the servo towards his mouth and guzzled the stagnant energon that streamed out of it. Both on top and under protoform, Strongarm and Fixit's nodes crawled with revulsion.

"Okay, that's disgusting," she declared.

"Gimme a break, I'm starving!" Steve whined, suppressing a burp as he popped the limb back into its socket, at least making him symmetrical even if the broken internal circuitry made the servo as useless as if it was still on the floor.

Though a good if still-revolting point, Strongarm groaned as she turned away from the sight. "Just don't do that around Wheeljack, for Primus sake. Earth made him scared enough of vampires as it is."


	13. Friends and Enemies Light Years Away

The trek back to the Jackhammer seemed much shorter with Steve in tow. The Vehicon kept quiet as he walked, preserving what little energy he had left in his fuel cells, but Strongarm couldn't help warming up to him. Decepticon drones were always easier to deal with than normal 'Con soldiers- once they switched sides, their primitive programming made it unlikely that they'd ever go back.

With any luck he might even end up being a positive influence on their resident ex-Decepticon, who was watching them both over the horizon while apparently filing his horns on a chunk of rock.

"Ey, babe, ya' got a second shadow behind ya'," he called out when they got within audio range.

Strongarm rolled her optics before throwing her pole amidst the other wreckage of the ship, grateful for the relief on her servo. "His name is Steve, and mine is Strongarm, _not_ 'babe'."

Thunderhoof looked about to protest, but his expression curdled into one of annoyance as he slammed a balled fist into the side of his helm. "Primus dammit, will ya _shut up_!"

It wasn't the strangest thing she'd seen, but it still made Strongarm quirk an eyeridge. "What's the problem?"  
"Damn comm unit..." Thunderhoof grumbled. "Every damn 'Con and their carrier's tryin'na call me..."

Steeljaw was bound to find out about his desertion at some point, but Strongarm hadn't expected it to be so soon. "Can't you turn it off?" she suggested.

"I _would_ , but the damn button ain't workin'!" Thunderhoof insisted, on the verge of tearing his helm panels off when Steve pushed his limp servo up with the other functioning one.

"I can help!" he offered eagerly, though Thunderhoof just regarded him like an Insecticon meeting a Sharkticon for the first time.

"Uh, you sure?"

"Wellll, I don't wanna brag, but three years experience of ignoring orders from Starscream has made me and just about every Vehicon an expert on turning comm units off," Steve said, already peering at the unit embedded into Thunderhoof's helm, until the 'Con finally relented and turned his neck sideways for better access. While the two mechs kept themselves occupied, Strongarm and Fixit approached the Jackhammer's hull- just as Wheeljack popped out of the door.

"There you are, sweetspark!" The Wrecker grinned despite the oil stains and smoke scuffs soiling his white armour, though the wrench in his hand fell with a clatter as his expression rippled with confusion. "Uh, did you find _another_ newarmour set out there?"

Strongarm glanced down at Fixit's more modest and life-saving configuration, still getting used to not having her chestplates on full display. "It's still Fixit, Dad, just... different form. When did you wake up?" she asked, actually surprised to see him doing work- either that, or he'd found something to get into a fight with like he always managed to.

"About ten klicks ago." Wheeljack yawned, baring chipped denta wide as he stretched his servos out. "Tell ya' what, I had one weird-aft dream... it had Ultra Magnus, but it... _wasn't_ him. Just his armour. And an ugly as frag green thing with a mustache standin' outside it." He shuddered at the thought. "I mean, Magnus was ugly enough already, seein' _that_ was like meetin' one of Unicron's kids or somethin'. Think he was a Minicon. Wish I could'a stepped on him before I woke up. No offence, Fixit."

" _None taken, sir,"_ he said meekly, while Strongarm closed her optics with a weary sigh.

"Dad, if you're finished reminiscing, we've got another willing recruit." She stepped aside and jerked her thumb towards where Steve was busy trying to avoid being clouted by Thunderhoof's horns. Wheeljack followed the gesture, and his optics whirred as they zoomed in suspiciously.

"Is that a _Vehicon_?"

"Yeah, we found him in stasis under some rubble, in the middle of... some kind of battlefield. He was with Airachnid while she was stranded here, and he figures he can help us find her."

Though he still squinted at him, Wheeljack seemed content enough in his shrug. "As long as he's fine with sleepin' on the floor 'till we get to an outpost. You too, Bambi; my berth's barely big enough for me, let alone your fat aft."

Thunderhoof's neck snapped upright again, the antlers almost knocking Steve back into stasis. "Ey, no fair, I got a spinal strut problem!"

"Too bad." Wheeljack was already turning away from the two mechs, hefting himself on top of the Jackhammer and kneeling with Strongarm by an open hatch on the roof. "Anyway, I've been havin' a look at the engine and looked like somethin'... _chewed_ through the coolant lines, and the whole thing overheated." He shrugged, rolling one of the ragged tubes in his digits as it fed into the hatch. "Whatever the cause, it's pretty simple to fix. We should be outta here within the next breem or so."

Strongarm nodded, though part of her spark lurched at the thought of leaving Earth further behind when it was already so small in the black horizon. "What about the comm system?" she asked.

"That'll be a bit trickier to fix, but if you wanna talk with Bee, the base frequency modulator should still be workin'. Just tune your comm unit into it and you'll be able to hear him."

"Thanks, Dad." She left him to his repairs and leapt down from the Jackhammer's roof, ducking into the still sparking and hissing interior.

 _"Bee will be worried about us,"_ Fixit said.

"Of course he will be- it's his job, after all," Strongarm pointed out, kneeling in front of the comm system's dented husk. With Fixit's patient help she managed to reconnect the modulator and retune her own unit's frequency.

"Bumblebee, sir, can you hear me?"

There was a near-deafening crackle of interstellar static, but Bumblebee's voice and relief was unmistakable when it came through. " _Strongarm, is that you?_ _Thank Primus, we had no idea what happened up there!"_

He was laughing to hide how scared he really was. Strongarm had to smile at that, if not just at hearing a familiar voice. "Thunderhoof didn't appreciate your... comments about him, and after that the Jackhammer's engine failed."

Bumblebee scoffed. " _Figures, that thing must be two centuries old. Guess that's why Wheeljack likes it so much, it makes him feel young, ha. Where are you now?"_

"Earth's moon. And we've actually found a pretty interesting lead to Airachnid... a Vehicon she left behind. Calls himself Steve."

 _"He's still active?"_ Bumblebee sounded more surprised at that than hesitant at the prospect of another Decepticon tagging along.

Strongarm glanced over to the drone, who seemed to have Thunderhoof trapped by the antlers as he poked around in his helm. "Well, he's currently boring Thunderhoof to death with a lecture on comm unit maintenance in zero G conditions," she relayed.

" _And you're sure he can help you find Airachnid?"_ Bumblebee asked, after a skeptical hum.

"He's the best chance we've got so far, so here's hoping."

 _"Well, good work anyway. You're doing a lot better than the rest of us down here."_

"Any new Decepticon sightings?"  
" _Not yet, thank Primus, but we're still gonna keep trying to get something out of Twirl. She hasn't been out of her stasis pod yet, but-SIDESWIPE, GET AWAY FROM IT!"_

Usually Strongarm would have smiled at Sideswipe getting himself into trouble, an assurance that everything was unchanged back on Earth, but hearing his name just made her scowl. "So he's still admiring her, huh?"

" _Well, he's been restless ever since you left..._ " Bumblebee trailed off, as if reluctant to turn the subject to him. _"Do you want to speak to him?"_

Strongarm took a few nanoklicks to think. "...No. He can comm me himself if he wants to talk." With everything needed already said, she cut the frequency off just in case Bee called him over anyway.

 **xx**

In the irregular darkness of the viewport chamber, the only things that shed any light were optics and the secret conversations within. Straxus kept his hands folded behind his back, claws wreathed together harmlessly in the presence of someone who could slice him in half before he even managed to move his shoulders. He walked with sure steps, more confident than anyone else who'd walked across the metal flags lining the chamber floor.

Anyone except for the one on the throne, that is.

"Airachnid," he greeted, stopping behind the grand chair turned toward the viewport itself spanning the entire north wall. Beyond it was barren space, an empty universe aside from the occasional taunting glimmer of a long-dead star's ghost. Like spokes on a wheel, eight razors emerged from in front of the chair and twitched in acknowledgement.

"Yes, Straxus?" The years away from the Decepticons had changed much about Airachnid, but her voice was still as silky as a sword edge; silvery smooth everywhere except at the lethal edges. Hearing it still made Straxus' gears lock, if only for a nanoklick before he managed to gather himself again.

"Twirl still hasn't reported in about the target, and her spark signal is dormant. Not only that, her comm unit is damaged, so we strongly suspect she's been captured by the Autobots," he relayed, recalling not long ago when he'd known the mission was doomed from the start with someone like Twirl in charge of carrying it out.

As expected, a sigh rippled past Airachnid's vocaliser. "I don't know what I was expecting from her..." And then, as if triggered by the hidden tides of her anger, there was a supernova of light filling the chamber. The bare black velvet beyond was ripped in half by a jet of energy, like a quasar propelling itself across the eternal night. Straxus could almost hear the roar of the light soaring across the space, photons slamming into his optics and forcing them to close over. The red Fibers over his right optic squirmed in protest, almost uncovering the anomalous yellow glass that they masked. But the explosion soon faded, as it always did, leaving behind only impressions of its magnitude that cast a lingering luminance over the shadows reasserting themselves. With both red optics now clear, he saw Airachnid had risen from her seat to watch the spectacle more closely, legs spread in a magnificent display around her. The view was the reason she'd chosen this chamber as her own, after all. And now that it was over the legs lowered, though she remained standing.

"What about my son?" she asked, and Straxus couldn't stop a flicker of annoyance crossing his face. Thank Primus her back was turned, however more deadly it was than her claws alone.

" _My_ grandson is still active on Earth," he said, with a heavy emphasis. "And though he hasn't found the Kamuicon, he's reported that he's managed to recruit a rogue Decepticon to aid him."

Her helm tilted, just enough for her fangs to glint in her grin. "Good boy, Chop Shop... be a dear and accompany me to the comm room, would you?" She held out a clutch of talons that Straxus had no choice but to take in his own. Though in a way, it was nicer to feel claws sharper than his for once.

"What will you instruct him to do?" he asked, half leading and half being dragged out of the chamber and into the thankfully dim light of the corridors beyond. Most lights were dimmed anyway, to conceal the energon stains that drone grease couldn't erase.

Airachnid's optics still had their honeycomb firebrand effect even when they competed with plasma lamps and pulsing red veins embedded into the metal overhead. "I'll have him keep an optic on the Autobots if he can. If the Kamuicon is still on the planet, he shouldn't move in without reporting it first." One of her legs tapped against Straxus' shoulder, though he couldn't tell if it was intentional. "Any updates on the Fiber harvesting?"  
"Everything's according to schedule," he answered.

Another tap, and this one was definitely intentional. "And your... little experiments?"

Straxus let a smile twitch on his mouth, revealing a glimpse of his own pointed fangs. "Going much more smoothly now that we have a clean lab, thank you."

They reached the entrance to the comm room, and Airachnid pressed the door release with her closest leg. Inside was a room similarly dark as her chamber, but given life by walls of pinging consoles and the synaptic blip of red LEDs. Red seemed to be a favourite colour of hers recently, Straxus thought, which would have explained the interest she had on his son on Earth.

"I must say, Airachnid, with all we've managed in less than half of Megatron's lifespan, it's a wonder you didn't take over the Decepticons as soon as they took you back in," he said while she tracked down Chop Shop's comm frequency. She paused to throw him a smirk, denta shining more than they should have in the glow of the equipment.

"Well, I suppose your son distracted me," she suggested.

Though Straxus was reminded of the rumours clinging to her nowadays, those of telepathy (and, to a lesser extent, cannibalism) coming forefront, he had to return her mischievous, almost playful expression."Don't blame the poor boy for having good taste in femmes."


	14. Cruel Love And Its Crueler Impostors

"So... how is she?" Sideswipe was almost scared to ask, though he couldn't tell if it was out of fearing the worst or suspecting Strongarm was just going to great lengths not to talk to him.

But Bumblebee didn't seem to be hiding anything grim beneath his blank, mandatory mask of professionalism. "Still alive, along with everyone else."

Sideswipe sighed, expressing enough relief for both of them- and plenty of guilt for himself. "And still hates my guts, huh?"

Bumblebee's expression broke for a nanoklick, and that was Sideswipe's cue to be seriously worried. "I… wouldn't say that, Sideswipe."

"But you know it just as well as me," Sides said, and not even Bee could find a way to argue against it without obviously lying. Instead the mech shook his helm, dislodging a sigh.

"Why don't you try her comm unit?" Bee offered, but Sides only scoffed.

"Cause I know she doesn't want to talk to me and I'd just make everything worse by trying." Not to mention that he doubted he could even channel her frequency so far away. No, the only reliable way of reaching her was through a heavy duty comm console, which meant she'd speak to him when she was ready and he just had to accept that.

Bumblebee must have known that before him, though whatever Strongarm really said to him would doubtless stay a secret. "I'm sure Strongarm's just... overwhelmed with all that's happened recently," he said unconvincingly. "I mean, we had a spy and a living armour set living right under our olfactories without any of us knowing. And she's the type to have a spark attack if you try sneaking out after curfew, so imagine what all of this must have done to her handle on things."

As much as Sideswipe liked to laugh at Strongarm's authority outbursts, all he could manage was a half-sparked shrug. "Right... I guess."

"Now, how about you tell me what the Pit you were doing with Twirl's pod?" Bumblebee asked, with a hardly perceptible change of tone that must have taken vorns to master. It had the effect of jolting Sideswipe out of his self-pity, snapping his backstrut straight as a different kind of guilt seeped into his frame.

"I-I wasn't doing anything!" he insisted. "Not... anything bad, at least..."

"Sideswipe." Bumblebee's warning was one many carriers would envy using on their misbehaving sparklings.

Sideswipe sighed, shoulders slumping as if his joints suddenly failed. "Alright, I was gonna... see if I could get anything more out of her. Just wanted to help..." His peds kicked up tiny clouds as they scuffed the ground, and he preferred watching them waft away than daring to face Bumblebee's disapproving stare.

"You're not interrogating a dangerous prisoner all by yourself, Sides," Bee declared. "Besides, she's not gonna tell us anything else right now. It's best if we leave it till tomorrow- at least then the whole team will be awake."

Sideswipe knew he was right, but that didn't mean he had to be happy about it. "The whole team minus two, you mean..."

Bumblebee sighed again, and Sides could almost see the lines creasing his forehelm. "It's getting late. I'm gonna let Russell and Denny know that the away team's alright, but you should go get some rest. The sooner you wake up, the sooner you can knock some slag out of Twirl."

Out of everything that happened that week, Sides at least managed to smile at that.

 **xx**

As it happened, Bee was right about sleeping early. It was what gave Sideswipe the idea to wake up several breems before anyone else, when the moon was casting spiked shadows all over the scrapyard and he was certain something far more deadly than a giggly Decepticon would ambush him. But the only sound for miles was his own peds chafing against the dirt underneath them, and his vents whistling in his audios. To avoid Grimlock's makeshift shack and Bumblebee's own recharge pod he had to take his chances through the very center of the yard, where there were no towering stacks of scrap to shield his silhouette. Still, he'd rather take a chance with being seen than with being sniffed out by Grimlock's olfactories- and without thinking about the filed denta underneath them.

Tense in the moonlight, Sideswipe finally reached Twirl's pod as he was trying to relax the tension laced in his cables. It'd be harder to counter any of Twirl's dirty tricks if he was as stiff as a shrine. He stared into the pod's view window, watching the reflection of his own faceplate over the pouting green optics and battlemask that was surely shielding a scowl. He tried to imagine Windblade's face over Twirl's, tried to figure out just how he managed to be so stupid, but his processor wouldn't co-operate, as if it was too ashamed to recall its own logic at the time. The faceplate stayed frozen, and his reflection grew more and more angry with each nanoklick. He was just one more away from punching the window in, just to tear the final mask away, when his clenched digits diverted at the last moment and went to the pod controls instead. The code for opening it was the same as with the others, some long list of numbers that only made sense to Fixit, but Sides managed to memorise enough of it that guessing the rest wasn't much of a challenge. He'd open the pod fully, but keep the stasis field intact everywhere except for her helm. As for the other controls, even he knew better than to go fiddling with them.

Some impatient klicks later the clasps at the side of the capsule finally snapped open, and there was a hiss as the front of the pod slid forwards and swung aside. Twirl blinked once before Sides clamped a hand over her mask, digging fiercely into the seams of her faceplate as he drilled a narrow glare into her.

"Not. A. Word." It somehow managed to sound more menacing compressed into a whisper. Whether or not Twirl thought so, she nodded anyway and stared at his hand as it dropped away.

"Now unless you want to be surrounded by a hoard of cranky, sleep-deprived Autobots with enough combined issues to land us all in a Kaon asylum, you're gonna tell me _everything_ you didn't already tell Bumblebee."

Twirl blinked again, jade ingots glittering against the full moon, and her battlemask barely muffled her giggle. "You're funny when you try to act tough," she cooed, and Sideswipe gagged silently.

"And you're creepy when you... do anything," he rebuked.

Twirl might have fluttered her wings if they weren't field-bound, but she compensated with a flurry of her optic lids. "You didn't think that when I was _Windblade_..."

At the mention of that name, the bot that technically never existed, Sideswipe forgot all about interrogating. Nowadays he tried very hard not to remember what the Pit was going through his processor when she- Windblade, Twirl, whoever the Pit she was- landed. Something like a combined desperation for attention and resignation to never being good enough for Strongarm, most likely. Whatever it was, he couldn't think about it without feeling his spark contract against its souring core.

"Cause... for all I know, you could have been using some kind of Decepticon hypnotising technology on me the whole time!" he said, but all he did was make Twirl laugh even more.

"That doesn't exist, sweetie, but if it did, I wouldn't waste it on _you_ ," she revealed, and her vocaliser pealed a sound that would have deafened a turbofox. If before she was giggling, now she was strangling sound waves, and the assault on Sideswipe's audios just made him want to slam the pod into the nearest ocean and let it sink.

Instead he channeled that anger through his own vocaliser. "Y'know every single word that comes out from that mask just reduces your lifespan by another few stellar cycles?" he asked, grinding his back denta together almost subconsciously.

Twirl stopped laughing at least, and she tilted her helm as much as the stasis field would allow. "Aww, are you missing your poor girlfriend? Don't worry, once Miss Airachnid knows where she is she won't let her live for much longer."

Sideswipe had managed to keep fury on a very thin leash, but now it was starting to snap. "No wonder you had to take up a disguise- no mech in their right mind would chase you otherwise."

Twirl tilted her helm the other way, fluttering her optics all the while. "And yet _you_ cut off a perfectly good girlfriend for me," she pointed out, like a hammer to the cracks in his spark. "Says a lot about you, doesn't it?"

"Strongarm is _not_ my..." Sideswipe's servos gestured inanely as his vocaliser tried to keep up with his stampeding processor. "I mean... she never will be now... and it's all your damn fault!"

Twirl tittered, almost proudly. "Well, I hardly deserve _all_ the credit... after all, no-one _forced_ you to like Windblade."

Bots often said Sideswipe had a very punchable face, and he'd never exactly understood what one looked like until now, with the most punchable face in the galaxy simpering up at him. Whether or not it would make him feel better to slam those fluttering optics out of their sockets, or compensate for the distance that now lay out between him and Strongarm, his digits were twitching incessantly. Even when he closed them together they trembled, rubbing off red paint flakes between each other, but he forced them to move calmly back to the control panel.

"If you're not gonna play nice, then back in the pod you go," he muttered while Twirl whined loudly.

"Aw, boo, I thought we were having fun..."

Sideswipe kept himself scowling, resetting everything to normal and hovering a knuckle over the door control when a very incriminating cough from behind hooked his attention. He managed to brush his hand against the control, along with a few other dials, as he turned toward whoever caught him red-handed (or... fist-handed, considering his digits had yet to unclench themselves).

If the dim orange plating wasn't a giveaway, then the rod-up-the-exhaust-pipe stance and the disapproval in his glare was.

"Uh… Drift!" Sideswipe greeted with a tight grin, forcing his fingers to fan out in a weak wave. "Didn't think you were the type for midnight strolls…"

The samurai mech didn't return any gesture, didn't even budge from his sentry spot. Sideswipe dropped his servo and inched away from the scene of the crime. "I was just, uh… checking up on the pod," he said, throwing a thumb to point behind him. "Making sure the prisoner didn't turn into a Scraplet and run away when we weren't looking, ha ha..."

Though Drift's stare didn't intensify, it saw right through his lie like a strobe through fog. "You were speaking with her," he said, a clear statement of fact that Sideswipe didn't even try denying. All pretense melted away, he slumped over and grated out a sigh.

"Only cause I don't wanna wait decacyles for info when Strongarm could be dead light years away from here in even less time!" he cried, as if his spark was pouring out into his vocaliser; energising each word with a catalysed sorrow that made him almost choke on his own fear. As much as he despised Twirl, he couldn't make himself ignore the slightest chance that she was right, that Strongarm would die without ever giving him one last chance among a hundred previous ones.

By contrast to him, Drift was a calm sky above a raging tide. "You care very much for Strongarm, then," he stated, and Sideswipe was too weary to do much else than nod and mutter.

"...Sure I do more than she does for me, at least."

Drift nodded, a much more solemn gesture than it seemed at first. "I understand. I… felt the same for Windblade."

Like whiplash, Sideswipe's neck cables almost snapped from how quickly they forced his helm around. "Wait, what? Windblade, as in... the one who tried to kidnap Fixit?!"

Drift shook his helm once while Sideswipe tried to stop his processor collapsing in on itself as it tried to piece together some warped version of the truth, using only what little he already knew. Luckily Drift was only too happy to fill in the gaps. "Not at all. I speak of the femme whose form Twirl stole. I met her before the war, bonded with her during it. And I knew from first glance that the femme who landed on Earth was not the one I bonded with."

Though trying to imagine any mech like Drift managing to charm a femme would have amused him at any other time, Sideswipe could only think of one damning implication. "You knew all along and you never said anything?!"

Drift remained still against the wave of anger, however hushed it was under the night sky. His optics moved for once, flicking behind Sideswipe to where the stasis pod sat like a bloated coffin. At once the blue glow sharpened to shards of ice. "As much as I wanted to confront this… this impostor, I was taught that patience is one of the only actions capable of ensuring peace. Windbla…" He stopped with a scowl, looking ready to bite his glossa off for its mistake. " _Twirl_ did not even acknowledge me when she arrived, and that confirmed my suspicions. There is no record of either of us having sparkmates, therefore an impostor would not attempt to replicate the relationship I had with her."

Sideswipe frowned, only left wondering just what else the samurai could know that he wouldn't share out of some kind of convoluted honour code. "Did the Minicons know as well?" he asked.

"They are as perceptive as myself, especially considering their... a femme that they consider equal to their carrier. But they knew as well to stay quiet."

Sideswipe couldn't keep the outrage act up for long, since he'd already used up all his emotional reserves on Twirl. He rubbed the back of his helm, almost feeling his crest going limp over his faceplate. "Well… jeez, you couldn't at least give some warning?"

Drift shrugged, an effortless movement despite his heavy shoulders. "It is difficult for those outside the Circle of Light to understand the reasoning of those within. But I believed inducing panic by revealing what I knew would only be counter-productive. It is best that Twirl revealed herself, rather than having been exposed beforehand."

"If you say so, dude..." Sideswipe turned to face the pod again, a quick glance to make sure it was really closed, before returning attention to Drift. "So… I guess you're gonna grill her about where they're keeping the real Windblade?"

The samurai was silent for a few nanoklicks, as if throwing words around in his processor before letting them slip past his vocaliser. "That was part of my initial intent," he admitted slowly. "But seeing this creature again... it disgusts me. Too much for words. Alone, I do not trust myself to maintain restraint with her."

Sideswipe scoffed empathetically, though the thick venom in Drift's voice surprised him. "You and me both, buddy..."

"I may follow your example, Sideswipe. I will preserve my anger... for a more suitable time. It would do no good to release it now, when we still have much to learn about our new enemies." The tension wreathed into Drift's frame seemed to disappear, if only temporarily, and his tone returned to normal when he forced his glare away from Twirl's pod and back down to Sideswipe. "As for the nature of this meeting... I trust neither of us will be speaking of it to Bumblebee?"

"Hey, what he doesn't know won't kill him," Sideswipe assured. "Not always, at least. Five outta ten times, I bet."

Though they both still simmered with anger the two mechs retired in silence, watched only by a not-so-barren moon overhead and a giggling, naked shape making for the forest. The abandoned stasis pod glimmered, as if its contents were only a projection of what it should have been holding.


	15. The Enemy of My Enemy is Kinda Cute

Even in the thick darkness of forest, Steeljaw's denta glistened as they gnashed together."And you're absolutely certain there isn't a perimeter guard?" he asked, lashing his tail against the other two mechs gathered at either side of him. Underbite looked on the verge of snapping the thing off at the joint on Steeljaw's aft, but luckily the wolf couldn't see with optics focused on the junkyard sprawled across the foot of his vantage point.

"I told you, Steeljaw, every time I've watched this yard they've all been sleeping away like sparklings," Fracture assured, with his Minicons bristling in agreement from their compartments. They were the ones who kept watch for him after all, mostly to try and corner Bumblebee for the bounty all three of them were craving.

Speaking of craving, Underbite whined past his jail-bar denta and almost chewed off his lower jaw in the process. "Boss, I'm hungry! Can't we just dive in for a snack or something?"

"You do that, Underbite, and we'll just leave you to gorge yourself while the Autobots surround you," Steeljaw warned, finally reigning his tail in and lying it flat against his spinal strut. "Right, the plan is as we discussed; infiltrate the yard, retrieve Airachnid's agent, and bash up a few Autobots if we're lucky."

Underbite and Fracture nodded, with the bounty hunter activating one of his shoulder compartments and letting the Minicon within leap out.

"Airazor, scout ahead up to where the grass ends, and see if you can spot Twirl's pod." The purple mech nodded eagerly, leaping up and propelling himself through the air in disk form. He landed with a roll at the edge of the scrapyard, keeping to the shadows as he skulked to the center where a slanted monolith showed where Twirl was being kept.

Steeljaw snorted at the Minicon's slow progress, and his tail started twitching impatiently again. "I'd prefer to just zap in and haul the thing off before anyone noticed," he muttered, and his lip curled when he saw Fracture's optics rolling.

"Well, we don't know how much security they've actually bothered to put around here, and I'm not taking any chances," the hunter said. "You saw how she fought Strongarm and... that Minicon-thing. I wouldn't trust something like that to stay locked up in a pod."

Steeljaw still bared his incisors, but now in a smirk. "Fair point. After all, _I_ managed to get out of one of them."

"I think the ship crashing during the escape counts as cheating," Fracture pointed out, and he turned to his comm unit before Steeljaw could growl at him. "See anything, Airazor?"

From the view of the hill, the Minicon had halted halfway to where Twirl's pod was sitting, and stared off somewhere in the surrounding forest. _"Uh, boss? You might want to look to your left..."_

Fracture did, with the other mechs following his lead, and spotted a shape roughly the size of both his Minicons standing on top of each other flitting through the trees like a disjointed Scraplet swarm, only with a much more chilling sound of giggles trailing behind it.

"Teeheehee, dumb Autobots... Mistress'll be so proud of me- _AAAAAAH_!" Steeljaw was the one who grabbed her, but he made the tragic mistake of only going for her chest. As such, his legs were mottled with bruises from tiny but very effective kicks in the space of nanoklicks, and his faceplate was battered by a pair of frantically fluttering wings.

"Stranger danger!" Twirl squealed, wriggling like a Sharkticon out of oil and almost slipping out of Steeljaw's grip even with his tail managing to keep one of her legs restrained. Of course the other mechs were no use, choosing to stand out of kicking range and just watch their de facto leader struggle with a bot less than half his size.

"Will you... be quiet?!" Steeljaw had to snarl to keep his own voice down, even though he knew Twirl was just one badly placed flailing hand away from biting him. But at least that would keep her mouth closed and stop her being a beacon to everything with a sparkpulse.

Still squirming in Steeljaw's servos and scratching his paint job to ruin with her wings, Twirl at least had the grace to grit her denta before shrieking behind them. "Let... go of me, pervert!"

Optics snapping wide, Steeljaw released her so suddenly that she spilled onto the ground. "I am _not_ a per-" His protest of pure offense cut off with a yelp as her shadow became more defined beneath the dappled moonlight, and he realised everything below her glare and hidden scowl was as bare as a protoform fresh out of the Well. Behind her, Fracture and Underbite were blinking both to understand what they were seeing and to stop themselves staring too much at it.

The wolf yipped uncertainly, dragging a sharp tooth against his lip as he tried to clear the awkward lump forming in his throat. "Um... well, none of _us_ are running around like Primus just made armour illegal."

For all Twirl accused him of, she wasn't exactly trying to cover herself up. Even now she placed her servos on her hips, leaving her chestplates open for anyone to try and not ogle. "I'll have you know, I had to use my armour in a really really clever way to escape, so _there_! Now you all better let me go unless you wanna end up as Insecticon chow!"

"I think I liked her better as the Autobot," Fracture muttered, utterly unphased by the glare she projected onto all three of them.

Steeljaw tried to bite his glossa, lest it start tempting him to have Twirl as a tiny annoying snack. "You mean... Airachnid won't be happy if we hurt you?" he asked tactfully. With the looks his companions gave him he might as well have challenged a Wrecker to servo-wrestling, but Twirl pushed herself up on the tips of her peds and almost cracked the glass of her optics from how hard she tried to glare.

"Yeah, she'll bust your pretty aft so hard that-!" She cut off as her optics widened suddenly, and her mask seemed to press into a pout. "How d'you know about Miss Airachnid...?"

"Well, we work for her as well," Steeljaw smoothly lied, throwing glowers at Underbite and Fracture to get them playing along. "Top secret agents, here to... keep watch on you and the Autobots."

Still squinting, Twirl whirled around to weigh up the other two mechs behind her. Fracture's smile was only slightly uneasy, and Underbite's denta clattered from the force of how hard his helm nodded. Her servos fell, shoulders slumping before thankfully and finally crossing her arms over her chest.

"You're not working with Chop Shop, are you?" she asked slowly, and before Steeljaw could recognise the name she launched into a long whine that she must have kept stored for the right moment to unleash it on an unfortunate captive audience. "I never liked him! He's so mean to me and thinks he's so special cause Mistress is his mama... well, _I'm_ the daughter she always wanted, she said so, so _plbbbbt!_ " Her glossa propelling against her lips was at least muffled by her mask, but it still had the effect of making her look like a sparkling throwing a tantrum.

"No need to fear, we are not associated with him," Steeljaw said, piecing together what he already knew about the antisocial spider-mech with this stream of new intel. "Although... maybe you could tell us why he's on Earth?"

Twirl rolled her optics and her sigh might have bowled bots over if not for her mask being in the way. "Well, _obviously_ he got captured on the Alchemor so he could follow the Kamuicon lead, then one of his Minicons sabotaged the ship engines, and _then_ he made it crash on the nearest planet so everyone would be released and-" As if registering the surprise taking over Steeljaw's faceplate, she stuttered and jabbed a digit up at him like a dagger. "Hang on a klick, you don't actually work for Airachnid! She keeps the cute mechs around her all the time and I would've seen you!"

"Busted," Fracture muttered while Underbite was busy sniggering to himself.

Steeljaw sighed following an obligatory roll of his optics. "Alright, we don't. But you're all alone on an alien planet with no armour, no weapons and no back-up, unless you'd like to go crawling to Chop Shop for help. So I think it would serve you well to be a little nicer to us, and we just might be inclined to offer our prestigious protection services to you."

Even through narrow optics, Twirl managed to burn a glare through him. "Don't wannaaaaa," she whined, grinding her peds into the ground.

"Well, you _gottaaaaa_ ," Fracture copied, somehow pulling off a similar petulant expression to her. "Preferably before any Autobots find us out here."

As if her gears were trying to spring out of her body, Twirl shook with her servos flailing fists back and forth in an impending tantrum. "Ooooh, you are _so_ lucky I wanna kiss you!" she squealed, jabbing again at Steeljaw before snapping around and marching off deeper into the forest, not waiting for the mechs to stop snickering at the horrified blush taking over Steeljaw's faceplate.

"Does your carrier know about your new girlfriend, Loverjaw?" Fracture asked behind claws muffling his laughter, while Underbite didn't even bother trying to cover his maw.

"My carrier taught me three different ways to remove a bot's spark from their throat, would you like me to demonstrate one of them?" Steeljaw growled back, dragging himself away from enemy territory and his colleagues' immaturity.

"You couldn't remove fibre-fleas from your own hide," Fracture scoffed, following behind with Underbite scrabbling to keep up.

But then Twirl paused suddenly ahead of them. "Hang on another klick." She wiggled her wings, looked left and right with a low and suspicious hum. "There's others nearby..."

Steeljaw's tail snapped up instantly, and he opened his olfactories wide for any whiff of a foreign EM field. "She's right," he declared after a round of sniffing. "Two mechs, Minicon size..." Then he noticed the two tiny shapes leaping for the safety of their base just as he went sprinting towards them through the undergrowth, moonlight flashing on fleeing orange plating before it was sliced apart by his claws.

 **xx**

Though the mine was as good a hiding place as Chop Shop could find on Earth, it did make communications a problem. It took at least ten klicks of banging his unit and repositioning himself at the entrance before he could get any kind of frequency hit, and even then he had to stay statue-still until he got the ping he was expecting.

 _"Chop Shop, sweetie?"_ Being so far away from Airachnid made her voice crackle in his audios, yet it was somehow less unnerving than hearing her speak just inches away from him. His Minicons shivered against each other, as if all jostling to leap off his frame.

"You haven't tried to comm me for a long while, Mum," Chop Shop said, resisting the urge to have one of his Minicons pop out and act as a pedrest. "What's the special occasion?"

" _Well, aside from your success in recruiting- well done, by the way- your fellow operative has managed to get herself captured."_

Even if he didn't already know about Twirl's inevitable frag-up, he still would have rolled his optics. "Which is why I said you should have let _me_ be the one to get the Kamui for you, didn't I?"

Airachnid tutted, but without the venom film over her denta it lost its usual effect in him. " _Oh well, no point in worrying about 'what ifs' and 'should haves'. Not when you now have a chance to prove that you can take care of a few measly Autobots for me."_

Chop Shop sucked air in through his fangs, and though he'd practiced fending them off his nerves still managed to seize his vocaliser (either his own or one of his Minicons seriously letting him down).

"Er, thing is, Mum... I saw Twirl gettin' caught myself," he confessed with surgical precision. "And… the Autobot that fought her's already fused with the little lad-"

" _WHAT_?!" Even when he was expecting it, his comm unit was still ringing after her screech finished.

"I knew you'd yell," he said through a wince. He could hear her trying to reign in her anger, digging a deep hole in her spark to bury it in until later, and her sigh was broken with hisses.

" _This... complicates matters, but I'm sure it's nothing you can deal with,"_ she reasoned, and Chop Shop could almost see her carving fake optimism into her faceplate. And here he was, about to slice it out of her.

"It would be... if they were both still on Earth," he said quietly.

The longer his mother took to respond, the more he imagined her boarding a ship and flying to Earth just to string him up by his fuel lines. But her voice soon simmered like fumes over an acid vat, and each word seemed to be dripping with the stuff. " _Are you telling me... there is an active Kamuicon currently wandering the universe and YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHERE IT IS?!"_

"...Pretty much," Chop Shop said, though he doubted she could even hear him over the tides of her own fury swelling into tsunamis.

" _Your... grandsire is very insistent to talk to you-"_

The only thing he could imagine worse than a grilling from his mother was one from Straxus. "Oh, no, don't put him on-"

" _I won't, dear, but only because there's only one thing you should be concerned with right now._ _Get Twirl, get off Earth, and get me my Primus-forsaken Kamuicon before I send you back to the Pit you were conceived in."_

It was the same tone she used when he got into her armour paint as a sparkling and turned her flagship corridors into a mosaic of black and purple, the same one she always used when she was five klicks away from committing a galactic genocide. "And just how am I supposed to do all that?" he asked, struggling immensely along with his Minicons not to start hissing back at her.

 _"You're a smart boy. You'll figure it out."_

The line dropped from his reach, and Chop Shop knew better than to try reaching for it again. Kickback's arrival from the trees prevented him anyway, with all six legs hauling along a stack of energon cubes lashed to cords."And that's the last of the energon in, no thanks to _you_ ," the Insecticon huffed, doubled over from vents far too heavy for his stick-figure frame. Though as Chop Shop bristled and swung down from his perch, Kickback's contemptuous glare become more curious than anything else.

"I heard yelling…" Kickback pushed himself upright with a quirked eyeridge. "You have an argument with your leg or something?"

Chop Shop was either a klick from smacking himself for not keeping his vocaliser down or from smacking his partner for being a nosy slagger. He compromised by kicking a tree root out of the ground as he squared up to the Insecticon. "None of your damn business. And I'll remind you that _I_ was the one who knew the other morons would be gone tonight, so quit your whining."

Even if Kickback knew where energon could be found, Chop Shop was the only one of their duo who could hold reliable watch on their rival Decepticons while they squatted in their own base just a mile away. Whatever they were going out tonight for, it meant their energon was ripe for the picking, and it didn't matter who did the picking as long as it was gone before they got back.

Kickback obviously didn't agree that it was a fair share of labour, from how his front legs tangled and scraped together and his other limbs held up up high as he tried to match Chop Shop's four-split glare. "Oh, of course, because spying on them is so exhausting on your spinal strut, I'm sure. And don't try bulking yourself up to look bigger, it doesn't scare me."

The spider blinked in surprise at the comment, and only then noticed his fangs biting into his own mouth, his claws balling into fists and every spark of his Minicons flaring into mini supernovas. And that was all before the hot pounding of energon flooding through every inch of his frame, swelling against his plates like lava erupting from his core. Then it was gone, all anger sucked right back to its source and leaving his tanks painfully empty, his processor almost floating in his helm. How close had he just come to losing himself...? If he wasn't careful, one day he wouldn't be able to get rid of it so easily. That was the one warning his mother gave him that he was always careful to remember.

"Just get outta my way," he snarled, elbowing Kickback aside and tearing into one of the pilfered energon cubes. His Minicons would have scattered and drained each cube by themselves if it wasn't for the hunger making them all so weak. He tipped his helm back even though he felt it was about to pop off his neck, poured the liquid straight down his throat with his glossa forced flat by the tide he gulped down. His tanks filled with air bubbles and he burped, but that was the only pause between his first cube and the next falling apart in his savage mouth.

Whatever Kickback thought of the feeding frenzy, he only made one observation. "Everything you guzzle, you can replace all by yourself."

Chop Shop slurped at the stains around his mouth, sucking at his his sticky talons mindlessly. "Fine by me," he growled, well-used to feeding himself by now.

Though he must have looked like a walking massacre, Kickback still sat near him when he took his own cube. Ironically, he seemed to feel safer in Chop Shop's shadow than alone in the dark of the night… in a more sober state, the spider would have emphathised. But for now, all he could do was eat to spite his many selves.


	16. Local Mech Ruins Everything

The Jackhammer was ready to leave in just enough time that Wheeljack didn't manage to find something new to break before then. He settled himself into the captain's seat, actually bothering to run pre-take off checks on the equipment for once, with Steve left comatose in the cargo bay after gorging himself on energon that was now sluggishly burping its way through his vents. That only left Thunderhoof to haul on board, with Strongarm and Fixit as the ones to fetch him from (so bizarrely despite everything the two had already gone through) digging his antlers into the cold dust. At least, that's what it looked like. With the Earth hanging in front of him on the horizon, swollen like a barren sun, he looked like some kind of horned beast descending upon it.

"Thunderhoof, as much as I'd like to leave you behind, I'm actually starting to believe you might be useful at some point," Strongarm said above him. "So get your aft on here already."

The Decepticon's helm snapped up, whirling around and raking the dead air before finally finding her standing behind him. "I was just... checkin' something," he said, pressing his audios to the ground again.

Strongarm scowled impatiently. "Something being...?"

"Energon ore..." Thunderhoof scooped through the dirt with a hand while the other fiddled with his receptor. "It makes a kinda hum when there's an EM ping against it."

Strongarm's optics narrowed, though Fixit didn't seem to share her suspicion. If anything, he was just eager to get going, but she couldn't help her inner police officer coming to the surface. "How d'you know that?" she asked.

"Used to be a miner before... I found a much more lucrative line'a work," Thunderhoof answered, smirking to himself. Strongarm hadn't gone over his criminal record in a long while, but the story made sense with his frame type. From what she heard of Golden Age mine conditions, it was a wonder he survived long enough to even enter the war that followed.

"And what would energon be doing on a mass so far from Cybertron?" she pressed on, while Thunderhoof finally removed himself from the ground and shook his frame free of dust.

"Well... you've heard the ghost stories about Earth, right? The whole... Unicron's body buried in the crust kinda thing?" he asked.

Fixit trembled at the mention of Unicron, but Strongarm only rolled her optics. "Heard and completely ignored them cause they're a load of slag. That doesn't explain how there'd be energon on the planet's moon, anyway."

Thunderhoof frowned, scratching at his chin more to rub away dirt than to help him think about anything. When he spoke, it was so slowly he might as well have been running his thought processes with the power of a calculator. "...Luna-2 is still missing from Cybertron, right?"

"Oh, come on-"

"So it could be an energon gold mine that sensed Unicron somewhere down there and-"

"Or, even better, we're standing on a long lost Metrotitan and Primus himself is gonna come out and pat us on the back for finding it!" Strongarm didn't try to hide her sarcasm, so even a mech like Thunderhoof would have found it impossible to overlook. "There already a hundred even more dumb theories about what happened to Luna-2, I'm not adding another to the list." She turned away with a frustrated frown towards the Jackhammer, forcing Thunderhoof to tramp behind her to keep up.

"...Might be Dark Energon!" he suggested, and her laugh was like one compulsorily given to a bad joke said out loud.

"Dark Energon that doesn't even exist!" she insisted, pulling herself up the boarding ramp with one servo on the door frame.

"Oh really? Then explain why I got slapped with an arrest warrant for shippin' a ton of the stuff through the Pandoran checkpoint!"

Strongarm turned to face him only so she could mirror his crossed servo stance and stare him down- never mind that he was at least a helm taller than her. "I actually read that report and one; it wasn't Dark Energon, it was a bunch of amethyst geodes around a speaker making humming noises and two; you were arrested because you were trying to bribe the import officer with cheap circuit boosters."

Thunderhoof blinked, stuttered, jaw flapping slightly as he seemed to slowly remember that incident for himself. "...In my defense, I was a lil' drunk."

"And still piloting a ship, also why you were arrested," Strongarm pointed out smugly. Though before she could safely take her place in the passenger seat, she heard Wheeljack snorting laughs against the back of his hand.

"Ah, I've done that a few times," he lamented. "Though back then, you only got a decacycle in the brig before they got sick of you and threw you back out."

"I think they just didn't like you, Dad." Strongarm crossed her servos over and sank back into her chair, wondering if she could just fall back to Earth if she pushed down hard enough. With all the excitement keeping her distracted, she was only just starting to notice the ache in her peds from stomping around on them for so long.

Wheeljack shrugged, stretching his servos out to click his digits in their joints. "Either way, I still got out in time for Bulkhead's sparkday. So, where to first on the SS Suicidal?"

She sighed while Thunderhoof made a nervous "Huh?" noise behind her. "Where were we headed before the crash?" she asked.  
"Well, I can't activate the FTL drive until we're clear of all nearby orbits, so I figured we might as well stop for supplies at the nearest outpost, somewhere in the Fringe Cloud. After all, I only packed for two bots, not five." Wheeljack leaned in sideways to her with a glance back at Thunderhoof, and his vocaliser dampened. "And between you and me, sweetspark, Bambi over there looks like he makes up for another two mechs on fuel alone."

Strongarm stifled a laugh, mostly from knowing it was Wheeljack himself who would end up guzzling through half their supplies in less than a day. "How long will it take for us to clear the system?"

"As long as we have no more problems... two solar cycles. I gotta keep the engine on slow burnin' to save the fuel."

Two solar cycles stuck in a cramped cabin with a Decepticon, a zombie drone, and her father's terrible sense of humour. "Greaaaat," she drawled.

"Don't look so down, sweetie, we ain't on a time limit. Besides, you can grill your new pet Sleepin' Beauty on the way there." Wheeljack threw a thumb behind him to where Steve was still groaning his way through an energon cube. "Primus knows what he might end up rememberin' between here and the Cloud."

Strongarm huffed again, but at least trying to get herself comfortable for the long journey ahead.

With the engine recalibrated and navigation co-ordinates locked in, the Jackhammer finally lifted with a lurch. The side thrusters rotated its hull, knocking an unprepared Thunderhoof off his bench just as he sat down on it and placing the Earth in the ship's viewport for a few fleeting nanoklicks. Only now was Strongarm really starting to miss it, the friends she was leaving behind and even the humans with their tiny squishy frames and weird wet optics, with the realisation that there was no going back now. She'd return with Airachnid in cuffs and the universe a lot safer for it, or not at all.

The engine roared and hull hummed around them as it barrelled through sound barriers that were inconsequential in the blank vacuum of space. She could practically feel her spark aching the further it was torn from Earth, from... Sideswipe. So she ignored the uncomfortable tingle in her nodes, the words she wished she'd said now cluttering every inch of her processor, the way her frame refused to stop shaking.

Or maybe that was just Fixit trembling on her.

"You okay, Fixit? You seem a little... nervous," Strongarm asked quietly, mindful of how easy her sire could eavesdrop even if he was supposed to be watching the controls. The optics spread out across her collar blinked, and the trembling only ceased for a nanoklick before starting back up again.

"Do you... really think Unicron's down there, Strongarm? On Earth?" he asked, and Strongarm didn't know whether to sigh or laugh.

"I really doubt it, buddy. Bumblebee once tried to convince me he was there with Optimus fighting him, but he's got the processor of a sparkling only slightly less often than Sideswipe does. He'll say anything to make himself look good."

"So... you don't think it happened?"

Strongarm shrugged, with Fixit's smooth plates over her shoulders creaking together. "So much did happened in the war, it's hard to say what's true and what isn't. Especially with Optimus not here to tell us himself." She frowned, remembering the shrine to the last Prime she used to walk past every day on her way to academy, running laps around it during drills and paying tribute to it in the Solar Solstice. To think such an idol of her life, of so many bots her age, was someone none of them had ever even met before. All they knew about Optimus was secondhand tales and the leftovers of a dark time no one liked to remember for too long.

"Just... don't worry yourself about it, okay?" Strongarm continued. "We've got enough enemies we know are real to deal with as it is."

Fixit hummed in something like agreement, but the further they sped into space the more he kept shaking.

xx

"SIDESWIPE!"

The red mech was used to hearing that tone from Bumblebee by now, and he didn't even falter in his impromptu sparring match with Grimlock. "Whatever I did now, Bee, can I take an IOU on the punishment? I'm in the middle of someth-"

"Get. Over. Here. Now."

Even Grimlock was frozen in place by the command, and didn't react to Sideswipe poking at his jaw with the metal strut in his hands. Sides especially wasn't dumb enough to ignore it for long, and he sighed as he threw the strut aside into another pile of junk. "Something that can wait, then..." He stomped over to where Bumblebee stood stiffly with servos clamped on his hips, in front of Twirl's stasis pod. When Sideswipe came within another few strides, the yellow mech stepped aside to show the pod open and empty, aside from a collapsed pile of shimmering armour plates that spilled out like the empty husk of a nightmare.

"Care to explain where our prisoner has gone?" Bumblebee didn't so much ask as push every syllable through the gritted bars of his denta, though Sideswipe was too occupied to answer; sifting through the abandoned armour, as if Twirl had managed to hide underneath them or dig a hole right through the bottom of the pod (he really would have believed anything where she was concerned).

"I...I don't... how the Pit should I know?!" he shouted, throwing his servos out and knocking the plates all over the ground as a result. Even as he hoped she'd emerge from them like some kind of giggling phoenix, they lay empty and bare in the dirt, mocking him more than her hidden simpers managed to.

"Because you were the only one wanting to talk to her last night, and only you would be stupid enough to leave her pod open!" Bumblebee answered, shoving a digit into Sideswipe's face to pound the accusation through his helm.

"I resent that on the grounds that Grimlock would also be stupid enough to do that," Sides pointed out, just low enough to not risk the Dinobot overhearing, though Bee shoved aside the digit he lamely pointed up at him.

"Will you take this seriously?!" he yelled, optics like twin wildfires that only barely dimmed when they saw Drift approaching behind Sideswipe. "Drift, do you know anything about what the Pit happened here?"

Whether or not the samurai overheard Sideswipe's scolding, he managed to piece together what happened with a single glance at the barren pod and the pink plates scattered before it. "Not a thing, Bumblebee. Although I am inclined to believe Sideswipe."

Bumblebee blinked away the blue fires, completely stunned just as Sideswipe was. "And why's that?"

"I have shallow recharge cycles," Drift explained. "If he was wandering the scrapyard last night, I would have easily been awakened." Sideswipe knew that was true at least, despite how carefully he tried to get around the yard last night avoiding both piles of noisy scrap and anywhere he could have been seen skulking about from. The samurai flashed him a glance, almost warning him against ruining their careful lie, and Sideswipe knew for once when to keep his mouth shut.

Bumblebee narrowed his optics at the red mech, but eventually sighed and gave up scrutinising him. "Alright, fine. Even if you didn't let her out, Sides, that doesn't change the fact that she's out there, causing all sorts of chaos we don't know about-"

"There is also another issue," Drift put in, the only one who could get away with interrupting Bumblebee aside from Strongarm on a bad day. "My Minicons were not in their pods when I awoke this morning."

"Can't you track them down?" Bee asked.  
Drift shook his helm in one broad movement. "No. I do not have any any form of tracker placed on them. I value their privacy too much."

"Well then what makes you think they're in trouble?"

"Whenever they need to leave my side, they let me know. It has always been this way."

Bumblebee rubbed at the center of his helm impatiently, and Sideswipe was trying to ease himself discreetly away from them both without being noticed. "Well… maybe it was something urgent," Bee suggested wearily.

"'Something urgent' would mean they are surely in danger," Drift pressed on, furrowing his eyeridges so slightly but nonetheless with the effect of concrete poured over his expression.

It was hard for Bee's sigh not to come out as a growl. "Drift, I understand your concern, but we really don't have time to-"

"Master!" All three mechs turned to the new voice, and Sideswipe was almost bowled over by the Minicon barreling frantically towards Drift.

"Slipstream, where have you been?" the samurai demanded as he knelt down, though the harsh tone was contrasted by how gently he held the trembling mech who struggled to speak.

"L-Last night... me and Jetstorm... we heard something in the forest," Slipstream stuttered, trembling violently even when he didn't speak. "We went out to look, and... the Decepticons were there. With Twirl! She spotted us, a-and... Jetstorm..." The Minicon's legs and vocaliser both failed him, and he collapsed forwards into Drift's servos as a sobbing heap of metal. "I-I failed you, Master... I let my brother get taken…!"

Drift didn't push Slipstream away or scold him for leaking coolant over his armour; instead he embraced him and dipped his helm close to his student's. "Jetstorm knew the risks as well as you did, Slipstream. You both followed your instincts, as I trained you to. It is not your fault that he was captured," he said softly, as if Bumblebee and Sideswipe were a million light years away and not staring like the samurai had just sprouted a pair of Seeker wings.

Slipstream's whimpers subsided slowly, but he was reluctant to pull away from Drift until his tears stopped and were wiped away by both his and his master's digits. Bumblebee coughed awkwardly, trying not to intrude on the tender scene.

"Well... we know where Twirl is, at least," he said. "And the Decepticons don't have any way off the planet, so she won't be going anywhere."

Sideswipe could have probably left at that point with no-one noticing, but he figured he might as well try to be useful. "Her comm unit's damaged, right? So she's also got no way to contact Airachnid. The other Decepticons are the only help she's got… what would they want with Jetstorm, though?"

"They may be planning to use him as bait for a trap," Drift suggested, one hand still firmly placed on Slipstream's shoulder. "To lure us into handing ourselves over. If Twirl is after Fixit and Strongarm, then only we can tell her where they are. She will likely make some sort of deal with the other Decepticons, in return for their aid in this scheme."

Bumblebee nodded, but Sideswipe scratched his chin as another theory sprang up in his processor. "Do you think... Twirl told the 'Cons about those Kamui things? Maybe they think… Jetstorm is one."

Slipstream gasped, and jumped back into Drift's servos again. "Don't let the scary pink thing wear him, Master!" he begged, and the samurai stroked the back of his helm while sweeping a stare over both mechs.

"Do as you wish, Bumblebee, but my priority will be getting my student back. No matter the cost." Drift stood up, taking Slipstream against his chest and carrying the Minicon off before Bee could order otherwise.

Now only Sides and Bumblebee remained, and the former was still hopeful of getting away unscathed. "So... guess I'm off the hook?" he asked with a smile.

"No, you're on morning patrol duty for the rest of the decacyle," Bumblebee answered, turning away and just missing Sideswipe's jaw dropping with a scandalised frown.

xx

Note: The Fringe Cloud is what I figured Cybertronians would call what we know as the Oort Cloud on the edge of our solar system; since I imagine they've come across hundreds of systems with a cloud of icy objects on its edges, they'd have a general name for it.

Also I really love GentleDad!Drift ;-;


	17. Please Do Not Feed The Animals

With his helm still ringing from his brother's cries and the harsh crack of a fist against it, Jetstorm barely hovered on the edge of consciousness. Each time he awoke he saw either trees or bare plains, with the sun crawling a little higher in the sky each time, and his audios made every sound a static-fringed drone of meaningless ambience. And when his hearing eventually cleared, it wasn't something to be relieved over.

"Set him down near the saw blades," he heard Steeljaw order, and the wriggling Minicon strung up between Divebomb and Airazor was dumped down in front of an expanse of rusted fan blades. Jetstorm groaned, battered by the rough trek through the forest to... wherever it was the Decepticons holed themselves up in. Even with how much he'd slept through the journey he couldn't struggle against the cuffs slapped on his wrists, nor the buzzing electric cords draped around the blades that chained his servos together.

"And Underbite, uh... see if you can't find something our guest can cover herself with," Steeljaw said with an uneasy glance towards Twirl while she pranced around like the base was a dance studio left all to herself. She paused to give a pout of badly hidden disappointment to the wolf, before skipping along in front of Underbite's immense peds.

"Not often I try and get a lady _in_ armour..." The mech snorted and somehow managed to keep his massive legs from trampling her as he maneuvered towards the spare scrap pile left in one corner (mostly there to keep his own gluttony in check, Jetstorm thought, and even now Underbite couldn't stop nibbling on pieces as he dug through them). Still struggling through a haze of static, Jetstorm could only watch his captors silently and hope he'd see something worth taking back to the Autobots- that is, if he ever managed to get back to them.

Once she'd finished touring the whole open floor, Twirl planted her hands on her hips and squinted up at Steeljaw. "Soooo... what d'you all do here all day other than annoy Autobots?"

"That's none of your concern," he answered curtly, flicking his tail dismissively as he walked past her. Again Twirl pouted behind her mask and scurried after him like a sparkling.

"Is so!" she insisted, turning each step into a hard stomp of her peds and throwing a digit in Jetstorm's direction, asking; "And why'd we have to bring _him_ along, anyway? Autobot mechs are so _ugly_..." Despite everything else crowding his sensors, Jetstorm couldn't help feeling offended.

Steeljaw just snorted at the comment, following Twirl's digit and giving Jetstorm a very unsettling grin, one that might have been called 'wolfish' on Earth. "Call it _insurance_ against any Autobots finding us," he told her.

Twirl gave Jetstorm one last jagged stare and huffed before trotting away. "Whatever. As long as I get home, I don't care if a _hundred_ Autobutts rust to death around here." Something made her suddenly stop strutting, and her eyeridges creased as she snapped her helm back towards Steeljaw. "Speaking of which, just how am I supposed to _get_ home? I don't see you working on a new spaceship or anything! Get to it already, chop chop!" She clapped her hands together as if that would spur obedience, but all it did was make Fracture roll his optics behind her while his Minicons took their time to ogle her.

"Ma'am, if I may point out..." Twirl faced the bounty hunter with a glare but didn't try interrupting him just yet. "You have wings, so couldn't you just _fly_ home? Or out to a Space Bridge?" he suggested, though as soon as he mentioned wings she flinched and regressed to fiddling with her digits and mumbling.

"I... neverealearnedhowtofly..."

"What's that?" Fracture pressed, just enough for her to explode with splayed servos that almost took Airazor's optic out when he got too close to her.

"I dunno how to fly, alright?!" she shrieked, tugging on the twitching panels that sprouted from her back. "I have these _things_ bolted on and all they do is weigh me down and make me look _faaaaaat_!" Her vocaliser shut down into a stream of static-choked sobs as she collapsed into Fracture's unprepared servos. The bounty hunter awkwardly embraced her, kicking aside Airazor and Divebomb as they tried to 'comfort' her as well, and cast a silent cry for help over to Steeljaw just as Underbite decided to prove himself useful.

"Got somethin'!" The mech held up a crude set of metal mashed together into something like armour, covered with what were definitely bite marks and denta scars.

"Just in time," Steeljaw muttered, snatching the set from Underbite holding it out towards Twirl while she was still using Fracture's entire frame as a tissue. If she wasn't so hysterical, she might have noticed that the makeshift armour was literally chewed together, but her optics must have been too damp to notice.

"Th...thank you..." Steeljaw almost felt sympathy, if he could have recognised it, as the trembling femme held the metal pile close to her like a lifeline. He motioned back to Underbite and put him in charge of babysitting her, luckily ignoring Jetstorm just as he heard a crackle shoot up his comm unit.

" _C-zzzk-me in, Jet-bzzt, can you he-zt-r me?"_

Even covered in static, Jetstorm recognised his brother's voice. He tuned his vocaliser as low as possible, dipping his helm so no-one could see his mouth moving. "Slipstream? I can't hear you so well-"

" _It's al-zzt-right, your microph-brrrz- is still working. Wh-zzssk-re you?"_

"I... don't know... some kind of factory, maybe?" He could only guess from his surroundings, but even these Decepticons wouldn't be dumb enough to hide somewhere where spark signals could be tracked. "The Cons have Twirl, and-" He paused as one of Fracture's minions passed by, eyeing him with a skeptical scowl for a few long moments before finally being summoned away. He got out the rest of his message in a heavy sigh of relief. "They say they're keeping me as 'insurance'... are you okay?"

" _With Mas-zzzt- Drift. We'll get-zzk-ou back, I swea-ZZZRRRRK."_ The burst of broken circuitry was so loud Jetstorm had no choice but to turn his comm unit off. It wouldn't turn back on when his audios recovered. His last line to his family, to Master Drift, was gone.

But still... his microphone was working, separate from the rest of his broken comms. He could still talk to them even if he couldn't hear what they said back. And they could overhear everything the Decepticons said, even if he missed snippets of it...

With that in mind he allowed himself a smile, and turned his helm towards where Steeljaw and Fracture had separated themselves from the spectacle of Underbite trying to help Twirl into the mangled plates he'd made. Though they were whispering together, he could tune his audios close enough to hear them.

"Still feeling confident about the new recruit?" Fracture asked.

Steeljaw snorted and shrugged. "She's young with her own agenda. I can put up with it, if she can get me to Airachnid."

"And what exactly do _you_ want to meet her for?"

"Well, that would be telling, wouldn't it? Besides, wouldn't _you_ like to meet the best of your field?"

Jetstorm saw Fracture grimace at the thought. "Not really. They say 'never meet your heroes' for a reason… especially if they're more likely to take out competition."

Then Airazor was tapping on his knee, distracting him from whatever demons were swimming in the bounty hunter's processor. "Uh, boss, were our energon stores so... empty when we left?" Fracture raised an eyeridge and looked to where Airazor pointed, with Divebomb standing beside a measly pile of energon cubes. Steeljaw seemed just as surprised, and he flashed Jetstorm a worryingly sharp glare as if it was all his fault, before rummaging through the pile as if the missing cubes were just hiding behind each other.

Underbite looked over with wide optics and a hanging jaw while Twirl kept herself close to one of his servos. "You mean... we're almost out of fuel?" he asked.

"Obviously," Fracture muttered.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Underbite wailed, falling to his knees like he'd just witnessed a murder.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, you corpulent moron," Steeljaw growled, throwing a cube over his shoulder and managing to hit Underbite right on his maw with it. "We can still mine for the stuff, if we need to. For now, we just need to ration more carefully."

But now Twirl was shocked, staring at Steeljaw as if he was joking. "You mean... _dig_ for energon? And get all our armour dirty?"

"If we must, yes."

 _"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"_ she shrieked, while Jetstorm had to worry silently if he'd just end up starving or nuisanced to death before he was rescued.

 **xx**

Before Optimus Prime's exploits on Earth ended up putting the Sol System on just about every star map, very few space-faring species had any interest in the blue organic planet dropped in the basement of a backyard galaxy. By the time its single celled life learned how to clump together, a thousand other xenoplanets were launching their first spaceships. When they lost gills and grew legs instead, Cybertronians were already making colonies out of Velocitron and Gigantion. And when humans finally managed to claw their way to the top of the food chain, war was already an ancient art perfected by Strongarm's ancestors.

Now, with Earth laden with all sorts of wartime legacies from Thunderhoof's Unicron myths to the battlefields still scarring the planet's continents, the Autobot Council had to declare it as a protected cosmic landmark to stop tourist ships completely overwhelming it. That meant no Space Bridges other than the fateful one at the Autobot Museum, no shuttle tours, not even a gift shop was allowed within hyperdrive distance of Sol. The Octa-Sol outpost got lucky, since it was in place long before Optimus even got the Matrix of Leadership and was far enough away from Earth that even the system's own star was just a blot among many others in the inky void. First established from the salvage of a lost Praecursor exploration ship, a little older than the average Quintesson-era ruin, it had to maintain a stasis field around its perimeter to stop it being battered to even more pieces by meteors in the Fringe Cloud. Which also made docking spaceships trickier than with most other supply posts.

At least, that's what Wheeljack insisted the reason was for him almost crashing right into the loading port. With Thunderhoof and Steve still snoring away in cargo despite the ship's hull almost caving in, Strongarm and Fixit managed to slip out while a security drone (non-Cybertronian make, from the look of the bulky plates and squared edges) accused Wheeljack of either being a very clumsy terrorist or just simply blind.

The outpost maintained a bubble of atmosphere within the stasis field, equal parts of the most common respiration gases like nitrogen and argon according to Strongarm's scanners (anything like a human who needed oxygen had to make do with hauling their own tanks when walking around, and there was more than one gas vendor around keeping patrons alive). This bubble blocked out most of the expected darkness of space; replacing the black void with a tinted, opaque patchwork cloud of the gases mixing with other particles that were somehow brighter than the stars. But it was the metal grate floors and support struts boring down into ancient asteroid foundations that got Strongarm's attention, the stern industrial gloom almost reminding her of Cybertron. A welcome pang of nostalgia bloomed in her spark, especially after being stuck in the same starship for the past two solar cycles with the same distant lights staring at her and varying levels of interstellar radio quality to keep her occupied (a helpful lesson for the future; never let Thunderhoof pick the music station). After all, Fixit didn't have much to say and reading up on Airachnid just made it harder for her to sleep.

Outside the main docking bay was a sprawl of stalls and jostling aliens, some Strongarm couldn't even recognise as she brushed past them. With so much variety, no-one seemed to find her armour unusual; if anything, they only glanced at her for being a Cybertronian so far from home before finding some other novel species to gawk at.

"Y'know you don't have to stay on me all the time, Fixit," Strongarm said, trusting the booming voice of a salvage trader nearby to cover up her own. "I can find a spare armour set to wear if you want to shift back to normal and have a look around."

But she could feel Fixit prickling as soon as she suggested it. _"Don't worry about me, Strongarm. I'm fine like this, really. I don't get uncomfortable in armour mode. I'm designed to protect you, no matter what."_

He was right about being more comfortable; at least, considering he hadn't had a vocaliser glitch ever since they'd first fused together. Still, it was hard for her to imagine being cosy while wrapped around a stranger for days on end. "You sure?"

He couldn't nod, but he conveyed a yes through a tingle of nodes against her protoform. _"...Thanks for the offer, though,"_ he said quietly, once they were on the move again.

In retrospect, it was probably for the best that they stayed so close together with the type of creatures that crawled around Octa-Sol. A mass of charismatic tentacles hawked weaponry that seemed nice to look at but less effective than a spoon against a Driller; a mercenary band of Turians and Kree sat listlessly around a bar looking for any excuse to start a fight; and when she finally found Wheeljack he was about to kick off with an Elcor taking too long to move in a queue. Luckily his relief at tracking her down drowned out his frustration before he could take a shot at the poor thing's hide.

"This bringin' back memories, sweetspark? You, me, a hundred planets in a decacyle?" He slapped a servo across her shoulders, bringing her into one of his half embraces as he recalled the many ill-fated spacetrips across planets that, back then, were still unexplored and utterly unpredictable. Strongarm remembered them as well as some of her fondest memories, but she couldn't dwell on them long without noticing the glaring difference this time around.

"Are we the only Cybertronians here?" she asked, seeing all kinds of carbon and silicon-based lifeform but not a single piece of machinery more advanced than drones with hard-wired glares.

"Yeah, most don't wanna risk the Council's wrath even tryin' to go near Earth like you and Bee decided to do," Wheeljack said with a wink at her. "But any decent outpost has at least raw energon for sale. I'll go haggle for it, you take a look around and, uh... make sure the kids don't get into trouble." As Wheeljack left to make his subspace lighter, Strongarm caught sight of Thunderhoof at last from the light of some kind of jewellery dangling from his horns, along with a heavily armoured organic almost twice his size squaring up to him.

"Too late..." She groaned and kept her subspace open for her pole, silently hoping that intergalactic strippers had different equipment so if she did need to use it, at least no-one would recognise what it was. The two males were so busy pouring testosterone over each other they didn't even notice her approaching, and the organic lorded over Thunderhoof as he jabbed a giant finger on his chest.

"The only reason I haven't already snapped your ridiculous helmet off and mounted it over my bed is because you are a civilian on neutral ground. Now I will give you _one_ last chance to apologise for assaulting and stealing from a member of the Imperial Elite Guard before I tear your fuel lines out and throttle you with them!"

"I ain't apologisin' for _nothin'_ until you admit you should watch where you're puttin' your fat peds, ya' bloated eyesore!" Thunderhoof was a klick away from trying to tear the alien's wrist off and bludgeon him with his own armour, dumb as he was to not realise how out-classed he was.

Lucky for him, Strongarm had torn her sire away from enough bar brawls to know how to break one up. "Thunderhoof, shut up," she ordered, shoving herself between him and his would-be butcher. "Now what the Pit is the problem here?"

The giant on her left, silver metal piled onto a frame built like a living tank and straining against the mounds of muscle hidden beneath the plates, stared down at her like how she'd often see Russell regard insects at his feet. The half-braided white hair hanging from his helm seemed to bristle with his frustration. "This does not concern you, ma'am-"

"You're threatening an associate of mine on, in your own words, neutral ground, and I'd like to know why, therefore it _does_ concern me." She met the glowing white glare behind his red visor head-on, hand on squared hip so Fixit could see any moves he tried to make. They spent so long staring that Thunderhoof might have just tried ramming the alien if Strongarm didn't have her other hand planted in the centre of his horns and the strange jewelled band still hanging off one of them, keeping him rooted to the ground.

Eventually the silver tank growled and held up the frayed end of his braid, hair spilling out in all directions. "Your _associate_ ruined my braid with those horns, and attempted to steal my ring," he informed her, pointing to the band stuck on one of Thunderhoof's antlers as the mech hissed air through his olfactories. "If he will not apologise for this slight, then he must at least hand over my property."

Strongarm blinked, looking between both males and trying to decide which of them was more stupid (Fixit still seemed to think Thunderhoof took the prize).

"Are you ser… _is that it_?!" A crowd had started to form, but those at the front flinched from the force of her disbelief. She marched up to the alien towering over her, jabbing a digit towards his visor and the creased white eyes behind it. "Listen here, I don't know who you think you are-"

"Ma'am, I am Commander Jaiantoro Yamakami, Fifth Order of the Gundarii Star Empire's Imperial-"

"I don't care if you're fragging the Herald of Primus himself, you're threatening to kill him over PULLING YOUR HAIR!"

"And stealing my ring," he corrected.

"And stealing your jewellery!" Strongarm stepped back with a heavy sigh, holding a hand out to Thunderhoof. "Give it here. Now." The mech was too stubborn to hand the ring over without growling about it. Strongarm closed her hand before Thunderhoof could have second thoughts about it. "As for _you_ , Mr Jai, you watch where you're going and go pick on someone your own size!" She glared up at him while holding the ring between two digits, and he slipped it through a claw of his gauntlet while leaning down towards her.

"I'm afraid there are _very_ few beings of my size in this galaxy, ma'am," he rumbled, almost managing to frighten her before marching away from the scene he'd caused. Strongarm glared into his back in case he decided to he'd rather just kill Thunderhoof later on, and only noticed how much Fixit was shaking when Jai slipped behind a stall, the only thing around that was bigger than him.

" _I t-think you scared him off, Strongarm..."_

"And you, by the feel of it," she joked, protoform tingling as the Minicon's nodes sparked. "You gonna be okay?"

" _I j-just need to... stay balm-clam- c-calm, I mean!"_ She could feel him blushing with the flush of heat along her protoform, and couldn't help laughing at his glitches returning so inconveniently.

Thunderhoof was still stewing in bitterness, rolling his glossa across scowling lips. "I could'a turned that big lump'a tin into a cube by now..."

"And you'd be back in jail for murder and we'd go on our way without you," Strongarm reminded him. "Funny how life works. Where's Steve?" She hadn't considered the past-locked drone until now, almost expecting him to be hiding behind Thunderhoof.

"Eh, he stayed near the ship, didn't wanna get lost-" That was how Thunderhoof was answering, until Steve decided to announce himself with a high-pitched whine as he barrelled desperately towards them.

"GUYYYYYYYS!" He skidded to a clumsy stop and almost stumbled right into Thunderhoof's chest, before the mech stepped backwards and let the drone fall face-first to the ground instead. Strongarm looked to where he'd come from and saw an avalanche of more bodies rushing towards them. Something was coming, and everyone was falling over each other to escape it. Strongarm dragged the Vehicon out of the stampede's path by his shoulders, shaking them vigorously.

"Steve, what did you do!?"

The drone managed to pick himself up just in time to look offended at Strongarm's accusation, and to escape the wrath of her servos. "I didn't do anything! There I was, minding my own business, eyeing a nice new blaster, when a giant... bird... femme... thing climbs out of the ship's hull and tries to peck my visor off!"

"What? That doesn't make sense, we would have seen-" Strongarm cut herself off when she noticed Thunderhoof frozen behind her, jaw hanging open and servo pointing up at the fake sky.

"You mean... _that_ giant bird femme thing?" he asked shakily, optics fixed on the shadow overhead. A screech pealed out like a siren from the roof of an abandoned shack, claws the size of a full grown mech clinging to struts as the femme's optics glimmered down at the freshly-brewed chaos spread beneath her. From her perch, she grinned wide enough to easily be seen from so far off the ground.

"Shiiiiiny..."

 **xx**

 _Jai and the Gundarii species both belong to a friend of mine who's helped me untangle a lot of future plots I have planned and with general details of the fic's universe. Therefore, I owed him :P_


	18. Shock and Caw

Strongarm only noticed the Decepticon symbol on the giant femme's frame as it came screeching towards her, turning her merchant stand shield into a scrap-laden rubble just as she managed to roll out of the way. A set of knives shot out and skimmed against one of her servos as she flailed towards safety, and she grunted in pain while sliding behind the nearest cover- a hopefully empty fuel tanker.

"Uh, Fixit... some intel would be handy right now!" When Strongarm checked her stinging servo there was fortunately no spring of energon or angry wound waiting for her there. Only the armour was scratched, and it was quickly knitting itself back to pristine condition before her optics with glowing red threads. It was so alien that she almost didn't hear Fixit hissing under the breath of his stuttered answer.

" _I recognise her... she's Filch, one of the Alchemor's escapees!"_

"Then what the Pit is she doing h-?" Strongarm almost bit her glossa when she spotted a very obvious set of antlers poking over a wall in front of her. She grabbed hold and vaulted over them to land right in front of Thunderhoof, with a digit right in front of his shocked expression. "You!"

"What I do now?" he pleaded, denta chattering in his jaw as he cowered behind the wall.

"Back on Earth, you distracted us so that Filch could get on board, didn't you?!" Strongarm tightened her grip on his left antler, only making him grunt rather than confess any faster.

"What?! I didn't even know that crazy chick was on the loose! You seen the size of her?! I mean, I like big femmes, but she's a lil' outta my league-"

Filch must have heard him over her own wild caws, from how her claws homed in on his horns and latched onto them like a pair of sharp magnets. He would have soared up with the femme if his frame was just a bit lighter, but with how much energon he'd gorged on recently he only flew forwards and barreled into Strongarm, sending them both rolling across the now-deserted outpost. The heels of Thunderhoof's peds skidded on the grate-metal floors, and he yanked his helm desperately against Filch's determined grip.

By the time Strongarm recovered from having her helm knocked against someone's abandoned scrap shopping, Thunderhoof was reduced to clinging onto a thin strut supporting an array of lamps that sagged and sparked under the combined weight of two struggling bots.

"Getcha'... fraggin' claws... off me, ya' damn oversized chicken!" the mech grunted, all limbs wrapped around the lifeline with one servo trying to swipe at the giant femme flapping above him.

Clenching her digits, Strongarm eyed the distance between herself and the duo as she pulled her pole from her subspace. She moved just enough closer to be in throwing range, and by the time Filch noticed her the pole was already arcing through the air to slam into her beak. She shrieked, wings faltering as her talons scrabbled but failed to stay clamped onto Thunderhoof while he furiously reared his freed helm and sent her crashing backwards. He rushed forwards before she could recover, ducking behind Strongarm with digits gingerly holding his scratched horns.

"Okay, so maybe you _didn't_ let her onboard," Strongarm confessed, taking cover behind a metal shack just as Filch threw her wings out and swooped down overhead to wrench the roof off in one might pull. Thunderhoof was too busy tending to his antlers to say anything back, and even if he did she'd already switched her attention to Fixit as he spoke quietly in her audio.

" _I don't want to rush, but... now might be a good time for us to shift."_

With Filch already swinging back to home in on them again, Strongarm agreed. "Got it." Her digits slipped on the bond band around her wrist, shoving the panel down with a tiny sting and a flash of blinding light that quickly consumed her. It didn't slow Filch down as she dove helm-first into the shimmering barrier, slamming against it with enough force to make both it and Strongarm skid halfway across the outpost, slowing more and more as they crashed into barren stalls and as the light faded.

When the cloud of glitter and dust fully cleared, Filch found her beak trapped between Strongarm's hands as they swam with the blue lights trailing up her arms, meeting at the huge pillars on her shoulders and Fixit's giant optics that crested her chestplates. Like Strongarm's own they narrowed at the Decepticon staring in utter bewilderment at her magically morphed captor. Strongarm's servos strained and creaked as they kept Filch's mouth clamped closed, denta grinding together, and her peds slipped further backwards as they tried to root herself to the ground despite gravity yanking on her oversized shoulders.

The Decepticon dribbled screeches through her bolted jaw, tried vainly to twist her helm out of Strongarm's grip, but she only got free when something managed to snatch away all of Strongarm's concentration; all the aliens only now emerging to stare at her from their shelters. In the nanoklick it took for a blush to stain her faceplate, Filch snapped her beak wide and broke through the vice around them, butting her across the face and letting out a deafening caw as she fanned her wings in a giant shadow over Strongarm. Filch was already massive but her wingspan swelled her frame to twice its size, freezing Strongarm and most of all Fixit in place where they stood… even hiding Thunderhoof as he crept up and threw himself onto Filch's back.

"Try and take my damn boys off now, ya' flyin' fraggin' Scraplet spawn!" The mech stretched his servos around Filch's neck, holding on tight as she bucked and wailed and tried to take flight while Thunderhoof kicked at her wings. Though she doubted the intelligence of trying to ride a giant 'Con, Strongarm was grateful enough for the distraction and the chance to find somewhere private, away from everyone still staring at her. Holding her pounding spark on her glossa, she hissed behind one of the only stalls still left standing while the rodeo raged just out of the corner of her optic. At least on Earth she was with bots she knew, but here... she was stripped down in front of total strangers. It wouldn't have been so bad if she wasn't expected to be able to fight with everyone watching her like that.

 _"Are you okay, Strongarm?_ _Your energon is very warm, especially around your face-"_ Fixit sounded concerned, no doubt feeling her lingering embarrassment in his own nodes, but Strongarm just stubbornly nodded.

"I'm fine, just... a little flustered." She still breathed deeply while Filch and Thunderhoof wrestled loudly, now somewhere behind them.

" _That's... not good,"_ Fixit said. " _If your energon flows too fast, you'll get weaker with every nanoklick like this."_

"What? You're saying I might almost pass out again?!" Even as she hissed she felt her energon run thinner in her body, less and less being pumped through as Fixit and his Life Fibers drained her.

" _If you don't calm down or finish this soon, then yes…"_

Despite how apologetic he sounded, Strongarm still wanted to punch him. _"_ Fragging fan _tastic_. Can you at least see where the pole landed?" Even if it wasn't much compared to her blasters, she felt a little less exposed (just a little, of course) with something big in her hands. Fixit's optic panels swiveled and zoomed in until they were pointing to her left.

" _There, by the lights!"_ It had fallen in the rubble Filch's first landing made, where she tried to fly off with Thunderhoof. Strongarm had one last gulp of air before sprinting out; almost over-balancing as she snatched it up but somehow staying upright, and only glancing sideways at Filch pecking stubbornly at Thunderhoof's peds while his legs were tied around her beak. She dove for cover as soon as it was in view, panting behind the empty junk stand and twisting the dented pole in her hands- just as she noticed someone else cowering opposite her in the shadow of a toppled scrap pile.

"Ohhh, it's like one of Starscream's rampages all over again..." Steve had his visor hidden by his hands as they held his helm, knees pulled up to his chest with the wheels on his shoulders spinning anxiously. Though Strongarm tapped his leg gently, she still spooked him as he jolted and snapped his helm up, visor glimmering with hidden coolant at her.

"Steve, get yourself back to the ship. Me and Thunder will cover you." She spoke in a whisper, glancing over the counter to make sure Filch didn't decide to make a crash landing nearby, and some silent nanoklicks passed before she realised Steve had never seen an active kamui before. Sensing her narrow gaze he quickly snapped out of it, though his visor was still bright.

"Uh... o-okay. Y-You know you're...uh…" He was pointing to the bare protoform all over her midsection, as if deliberately turning up the heat on her embarrassment.

"Half-naked, yes, I know. Just get moving before I kick you to the ship instead." At least he was used to following orders quickly, pulling himself over the counter just before her so he didn't have to see her struggling to haul her shoulders across.

Ahead of them, Filch and Thunderhoof hadn't progressed much in their struggle, and the stag was starting to lose with his antlers desperately stuffed into her beak to hold it open. Strongarm motioned for Steve to keep going ahead of her, knowing the Jackhammer was still waiting somewhere in the docking bay at the other end of the wrecked outpost. The drone raced between cover and the nosy aliens too dumb to flee and too selfish to lend any help. Filch turned her giant head towards him just as Strongarm reached her in a frantic leap, for once grateful for the heavy shoulders that carried her that extra distance so she could jam the pole vertically in the Con's open beak, replacing Thunderhoof's now-crumpled horns as they pulled themselves free for the second time.

Shaking the saliva off, Thunderhoof growled and was about to launch at her again before Strongarm did the sane thing and shoved him aside just as Filch hurled herself forwards, talons scraping against the ground as she tried to dislodge the pole from her creaking jaw, furiously throwing her head left and right. The bar of steel started to bend before Strongarm wrenched it out again, vaulting herself over Filch just as her beak suddenly bit through her glossa. The screech that followed was almost loud enough to break through the atmosphere barrier, and certainly enough to stun Strongarm as she tried to make for the haven of the docking bay. But Thunderhoof pulled her along even with her audios aching and helm swimming from a slow sparkbeat, and the Jackhammer was in front of them while every other ship around it sat bolted shut.

Steve hid himself away in the cargo hold while Wheeljack was seemingly unaware of the destruction happening just behind him; kneeling to examine a giant hole ripped through the hull of the ship and pulling out torn tangled wires and bunched cables covered in flakes of metal. It was like a nest a wild lilleth might make for itself, and with everything pieced together Strongarm realised what kind of bot they were dealing with, sagging her weary spinal strut against the Jackhammer's remaining hull.

"Dad… were you aware you had a _Corvicon_ turning the Jackhammer into her nest this whole time?" Wheeljack turned towards Strongarm's strained voice, double-taking at her choice of armour again, but at least now he didn't go off like the first time.

"Well, it explains why the coolant lines were chewed through... damn thing must've managed to get in while we were on Earth." He reached deeper into the ripped hull and dug out something like a pillow stuffed with a rainbow of snapped wires. "Now I'm a heavy sleeper, but that just ain't right."

Another shriek vibrated through the floor over the crack of giant wings flapping, and Filch was in the air again with something thankfully not alive glittering in her talons. It wouldn't be long until she spotted her prey again, or saw her nest being ruined.

Wheeljack was already standing in front of Strongarm, trying to push her back into the ship. "Sweetie, you get Bambi and yourself inside, I'll deal with-"

"I'm not gonna hide while she's out here wrecking the place!" She protested, sluggishly shoving her sire's arm aside. Fixit was right about getting weaker by the second, her vision was already starting to glitch and she'd hardly even accomplished anything. But not even her spine and spark rebelling against her could stop Strongarm being stubborn.

Wheeljack didn't try blocking her way again, but he was scowling as he pointed at the huge shape perched on the highest point nearby- the outpost's central tower and its thick electrical cords all looped around it.

"Strongarm, I'm not lettin' you get shredded by that thing!" His other servo swept over her hunched frame with an even deeper grimace. "And especially not dressed like that!"

Strongarm felt Fixit flinch from her sire's bristling anger, but she stubbornly rooted herself with servos over her chest. "Fine, then. I'll get changed."

Another swarm of sparkles covered her, clearing quickly to reveal Fixit's much more modest form. Wheeljack was shocked just long enough for Strongarm to throw herself back into the fight.

"Ah, dammit… you're lucky I trust ya', darlin'!" His shout managed to draw Filch's scanning glare right on top of him, and she swooped low enough to skim her claws across rooftops like she was sharpening them, but just out of Strongarm's reach as she tried to swipe at her.

"Looks like those Life Fibers aren't gonna do much good here," she muttered, watching Filch return to her perch with something that looked like the Jackhammer's radio antenna in her maw.

" _I'm sorry, Strongarm, I… it's been a long time-"_ All Fixit could do was spout excuses even though he was the one who got her into this mess.

"Forget it," she said, ducking behind a broken wall before Filch could see her. "Least now I won't die of embarrassment… I'll just die from getting sliced up like a normal Autobot." She doubted she'd know what to do even if she had her blasters and alt mode working, but before she could start cursing herself the sound of an engine to her left caught up to Filch's obnoxious caws. Just around the corner, a car in very familiar white paint shifted into a pair of legs that rolled to stop right next to her.

"Dad?" Other than the smirk he was sporting, the only difference about him was the cannon now replacing one of his hands. It was an ancient war-time design of built-in weaponry, only efficient if you needed constant firepower on hand. Seemed that Wheeljack never got around to having his uninstalled.

"Didn't think I was just gonna leave you out here alone, did ya'?" He kept smirking at her as he powered the cannon, a bright cyan glow humming from his servo as he aimed it up at Filch's perch. "Corvicons like shiny things, right? I got a whole bunch of them right here."

Strongarm wouldn't have described plasma rounds as 'shiny', but as Wheeljack peppered the spire's length with bright bullets it seemed Filch wasn't too picky. The glowing trail lead her back down to ground level, squealing with delight as she flapped and clawed at the plasma residue before it faded into black ash along with her joy. In her disappointment she noticed where the blasts were coming from, a much shinier source that she immediately chased after. Even when Wheeljack shifted back into his alt mode to outrun the Corvicon, she was still trying to flag him down.

"Any ideas, Fixit?" Strongarm asked, with a hundred dead-end plans and near-useless training scenarios swelling her processor now that it wasn't running slower than a terrabyter. After all, the only lessons giving in disarming flying enemies were for rogue Seekers, not giant beasts with razors for wings.

" _All I know is that she won't stop until she's collected everything that catches her optic. Even if it means tearing your own plating off,"_ Fixit answered, conveniently just as Filch missed digging her talons into Wheeljack's rear bumper.

"So the only solution is to knock her out," Strongarm said, slapping her pole against her hand. "I can handle that." Which was just as well, considering Wheeljack had swerved the corner again and was zooming right towards them with Filch following like a screeching phantom.

"Any time now, sweetie!" Wheeljack slalomed to buy more time, risking bringing himself too close to Filch's scrabbling claws. Strongarm saw what he was lining up for as she tensed her legs and timed it near-perfectly; launching herself onto Wheeljack's hood, then his roof, with his engine and her own momentum and a little something extra from Fixit carrying her high above the ground, right into Filch's path. The pole smashed so hard into her beak that the hard cone caved in with a huge dent, and her wings crumpled as she plummeted. Though she whimpered past her broken beak, she still pushed herself back up on flailing talons as her T Cog clicked and she was forced into bipedal mode.

Behind her fallen frame, Strongarm rolled to land with her vents heaving and Wheeljack's tires squealing as he stopped next to her, shifting back onto his own legs. Though Filch's beak was finally disabled her wings and talons were as sharp as ever, forming a barbed forcefield around her as she cawed a warning at them both, optics blazing something feral and utterly Decepticon.

"You just don't know when to quit, huh, honey?" Wheeljack panted, servos on his bowed knees despite the nearest sharp edge only being inches and one well-aimed slice away from his plating. Though Strongarm wasn't paying much attention to the danger either; instead she was scanning the web of wires suspended above them that linked most of the dark stalls to the central tower.

"Fixit, can you see where all those cables lead to?" she asked.

" _There's a circuit breaker somewhere on the length of the tower. Someone turned all the power off when Filch showed up-"_ Fixit must have realised the plan by the time he cut himself off. _"Are you... thinking of what I'm thinking?"_

"You tell me," Strongarm said, not able to resist a small smile. "After all, you're the one in my systems." She turned to Wheeljack just as he snapped himself upright. "I've got an idea, Dad. Keep her distracted!"

"Cause I was doin' so good at it before..." Wheeljack's complaining didn't stop her from running, mostly because he had to go in the other direction right past Filch to stop her following Strongarm to the barren hub of the outpost, which was scarred and littered with broken metal thanks to Thunderhoof's efforts. The tower still smoked from Wheeljack's bullets, but through the veil she could still see the circuit breaker- far over head, unreachable even if she had her heels.

"Dammit, I can't reach it!" She contemplated using her pole as a javelin again, but the impact wouldn't break through the case and she'd only alert Filch with the noise. Her only option was looking more and more like standing on a stack of crates, just before she heard peds slamming behind and and felt her shoulders shoved down by all the weight in the world- or in this case, by Thunderhoof using her as a boost.

"THIS IS FOR BREAKIN' THE RADIO IN THE MIDDLE'A BLASTER'S TOP FORTY, YA' TOUCAN TRASH CAN!" His larger frame combined by the leap made his outstretched fist land right on the breaker, smashing the controls to make the lights flicker and fizzle and, most importantly, the tangle of cables above swarm and hum with electricity.

Strongarm scoffed as he landed at the base of the tower. "You took your damn time," she noted, mostly bitter over having her thunder stolen.

The stag shrugged as he rubbed his fist. "Better late than never. Just be grateful I saw whatcha' were eyein'. Don't really know why, but-"

"Oh, you'll see." She looked behind her, spotting Wheeljack leading Filch on a cirkitten-and-rotorat chase halfway around the hub with his blaster lighting up the sky with blue fireworks. She signaled to him, pointing up at the hovering wires, and he seemed to understand from how they crackled above her. Holding his blaster down, he ran and rolled just before he reached her, aiming the barrel straight upwards and shooting in between the cables to create a beacon for the Corvicon.

And Filch took the bait, a tiny speck in the fake sky about to dive bomb them, swirling against the wind as it gathering around her, making to tear right through the net of wires... until the electricity coiled within them leapt up to meet her outstretched talons, covering her in a veil of sparks and hissing metal as she let out one last cry before collapsing, falling through the cables as they wrapped around her and tied her up in a cocoon that left her hanging just inches from bots' faces. Her charred claws came so close to grazing their armour that everyone flinched, leaving her barely grazing Fixit's huge, quivering optics hanging over Strongarm's chest.

Though it was still a few more klicks before anyone dared to emerge, the outpost's resident menagerie slowly trickling back into the hub to watch the Corvicon fall into a twitching stasis. Strongarm couldn't feel as proud as she should have, wondering how many of these people saw her in just her protoform. Luckily the lingering sparks covered how red her faceplate was.

 **xx**

Though some aliens flashed glances at Strongarm, mostly at her chestplates, most of the merchants were too focused on repairing their stalls and re-gathering their scattered stock to ask her why she liked to fight like an exhibitionist. Or maybe they'd just convinced themselves they imagined it, and were just as content as her to forget about it.

In the end the thieving menace was gone, and that was all that despite their affinity for Earth it seemed the infamy of Cybertronians hadn't reached this part of the galaxy just yet, as none of them were charged for the damages (of course that was Thunderhoof's main concern after the radio antenna was finally retrieved).

"Traders said they'd actually give us the energon for free if we got the big bird as far from here as possible," Wheeljack said, still smug about proving he 'still had it' (whatever 'it' was, Strongarm was pretty sure it was long gone by the time he got tired out by something as simple as a few laps around a market. Still, she was never in a mood to argue with him, so she just nodded with her optics rolled halfway back into her helm).

Filch, meanwhile, was still out cold in her comfy cable bed, with a rag tied tight around her optics just in case they opened too early. If she couldn't _see_ where the shinies where, then she couldn't chase after them. But Strongarm still wasn't enthusiastic about keeping her caged in the cargo hold, even with a stasis lock on her.

"What if she wakes up when we're moving? We have nowhere to drop her off, and the ship's about to burst as it is," she argued. Wheeljack already knew that himself, with how much he complained about all the space Thunderhoof took up on the way over, but he just smiled at Strongarm's worries.

"I think I've got a solution to that, sweetie." He had a digit on his comm unit, turning away as it pinged and eventually connected. "...Hey, Bulkhead. Wake up, buddy, I'm callin' in a favour. The one we were talkin' about a few vorns ago, y'know? Yeah, _that_ one."

Strongarm knew Bulkhead, one of her many unofficial uncles from the Wreckers, and she tried to listen for his voice when Wheeljack paused to let him speak. Her father scoffed and moved further away when he saw Strongarm trying to eavesdrop, but with how loud his vocaliser tended to be, it was a moot gesture.

"Magnus ain't gonna care if _one_ ship goes missin', and besides I spent the last few stellar cycles buildin' the damn thing!" Wheeljack nodded now and then, mostly letting Bulkhead speak and no doubt reluctantly agree to whatever half-slagged scheme he'd been dragged into. "Alright. Alright, I'll send you co-ordinates. Just try and get it through a Bridge before anyone spots you." He hung up, optics casting over the docking bay, and Strongarm was about to question him when she noticed someone familiar lingering by the loading ramp of another ship nearby; silver armour glittering, white braid dangling and onyx muscles flexing uselessly like the ultimate anti-Corvicon weapon that arrived far too late. Fixit tensed around her, but nothing short of an Insecticon swarm could have held her back.

"And just where the Pit were _you_ during all this?!" she asked Jaiantoro, resisting the urge to jab at his chest with all the steel stretched over it. The eyes behind his visor slid slowly over to her, not quite matching her own glare.

"I didn't want my ring being stolen again," he answered with a mighty shrug, and his visor seemed to glow as he leaned in towards her. "Besides, you were doing _so well_ by yourself, dear." She could hear the devious smile even if she couldn't see it behind his helmet, and she forced herself to march away before she got herself into another fight.

"Unbelievable..." She was still muttering when she returned to the Jackhammer, not quite noticing that no one was around it until she saw the others gathered in front of a different ship docked next to it, one that hadn't been there before and which seemed to have dropped out of nowhere. That alone would have made her jaw hang slack, but the real awe came from the sheer size of it; smoky black plating that blended into the void of space, blue accents that seemed painted by the stars themselves, leaping out of the hull and matching the wide light of her optics.

Wheeljack wrenched his own proud gaze away to watch her stand beside him in numb shock. "Baby, say hello to the Riotjack." He christened it with a flourish of his servo. "Named after your grandparents, obviously."

Riotblaze and Jackhammer. Strongarm didn't have the chance to know her sire's own parents, but the old and wild stories were enough for her. In a way, she figured she'd just be disappointed if she knew them like Wheeljack did, if they didn't live up to all the legends. But if this was the kind of ship that carried their names, then maybe they were even greater than she'd always thought.

Though she shook her helm, she couldn't stop glazing her optics over the immense hull with its bright viewports and thrusters bigger than the whole of the Jackhammer on either side of it, just under the strangely beautiful wings and fins that curved out from its sides. "Dad, if you had this ship the whole time... why didn't you just come to Earth in it?"

Wheeljack blinked at her, rubbing the back of his neck with an infectious smile. "Well... I didn't wanna spoil your sparkday by showin' your present so early."

Strongarm's sparkday was still a good few vorns away, but that was the only part of the sentence she could believe. Her vocaliser swelled, the sounds within too big for her mouth as they spilled out all at once in stutters and half-formed laughs. She was waiting for him to burst out in laughter, to chuckle and wipe coolant from his optics as he delighted in her disbelief because no, this ship wasn't hers, because no-one reasonable ever got their daughter a ship, never mind one the size of a war vessel.

But he didn't, because Wheeljack was far from reasonable. He just waited for her to speak, though she was still trying to get over her stutters. "Dad, you... you really didn't have to-"

"I know I didn't," he said, waving his hand to dismiss the protests bubbling in her. "But I wanted to. Thought you might appreciate the extra room, what with all the criminals you bring home with you." Then he was squeezing her in a hug, saving her the effort of having to hide her sobs of joy against his chestplate. She didn't know what to say- thank you, you definitely shouldn't have, you lovely fragging idiot- but in her sire's servos she didn't have to speak. Even with Fixit covering her she could feel her sire's spark like she was right in front of his chamber, and the warmth between them dried Strongarm's optics by the time they pulled away with a kiss still warming her forehelm.

"Now come on, darlin', I know Bulk is dying to see you again." Wheeljack lead the way up the boarding ramp, big enough to take in an entire gestalt team standing shoulder to shoulder, with Strongarm and especially Thunderhoof close behind with his jaw still not quite picked up from the floor. Only Steve lingered at the top of the ramp as he dragged Filch onboard, scanning his visor around the doorway.

"I remember the Nemesis being bigger," he said, and unfortunately Wheeljack heard him as he called out over his shoulder;

"Well, tell you what, kid, if it's so damn impressive you can go flag down the Nemesis and get a ride home on it-"

"Kidding!" Steve insisted, throwing his free hand up and rushing to keep up with the rest of the team with Filch dragging behind him. "I'm just kidding, please... please don't kick me out. I'll be good."

 **xx**

 _Terrabyter = robot turtle, from "terrapin" and "terabyte". As you can see from the chapter title, I like dumb wordplay._

 _This took longer than it should have mostly cause I'm lazy but also cause I got a new pet bunny and she distracted me._


	19. Less Talking, More Stripping

Grimlock at least tried to prod Sideswipe out of his sulk by smacking baseballs at him with his tail, but Sides didn't even try batting them away. Eventually the Dinobot gave up and stomped over to him, laying his huge helm on the ground and blowing up dust clouds just from his olfactories.

"What's the matter, Sides? You still messed up over Strongarm ditching you?"

Sideswipe blinked, shock pulling him out of his huff. "How do you know about-?"

"Cause I'm mad about getting left behind too, but... not many ships can carry me without crashing. Just look at the Alchemor!" Grimlock continued, leaving Sideswipe to realise himself that he wasn't talking about Strongarm breaking up their unofficial... whatever it was they had before he went and ruined it.

"Right... no, no, it's not that." Sideswipe groaned against his hands as he buried his helm in them. "I messed up, Grim. I _did_ open Twirl's pod last night, and... I must have forgotten to close it or something. Or she slipped out while I was talking with Drift, I dunno. Doesn't really matter now, anyway." He took out his self pity on the nearest rock, only succeeding in denting his ped and biting his glossa. While he lisped out curses and hopped on his intact leg, Grimlock actually had a thought for once in his life.

"Ain't it Drift's fault that she got away if he distracted you, then?" he suggested. Sideswipe might have reached that conclusion himself eventually, but Grimlock saying it for him saved him from any more broken plates.

"Hey... you're right!" Shaking the ache out of his ped, Sideswipe half-limped and half-marched over to where Drift had holed himself away with his remaining student, leaving poor Grimlock wondering if he'd done something bad again.

"Drift! Hey, Drift, I wanna talk with you!" In Sides' determination, he almost tripped over Slipstream as he homed in on the orange mech. With the narrow glare the Minicon shot up at him, his peds seemed to be getting him into more trouble than they were worth. He nervously skirted around Slipstream, who returned to focusing intently on something Sides couldn't see, and Drift beckoned him further away so he wouldn't try and trample his student again.

"Slipstream managed to contact Jetstorm briefly," he explained. "He and Twirl are being held by Steeljaw and his team of Decepticons. His comm unit seems to be damaged, but we can still hear his surroundings. With luck, the Decepticons will reveal their own location and we can then track them down."

"That's... lucky, I guess," Sides said, though part of him was dreading any kind of future stand-off with a whole team of desperate, stranded criminals. If Drift noted his unease, he ignored it.

"Indeed. But aside from that, what is it you wished to discuss?"

"Well... last night, I mean... about Twirl-"

"An unfortunate oversight... on both our parts," Drift said, pausing Sides with a guilty raised hand. "It seems she managed to trick us into seeing her within the pod with her chameleon armour plates- they projected a false image of her while she made her escape. Though that is only my theory."

"Huh. Didn't know crazy could also mean smart." It didn't make Sides feel any better about the situation, knowing he was dumb enough to be outwitted by a psycho Minicon. And from Drift's grim groan, he didn't have much more optimism to spare.

"Do not be surprised at what those with twisted processors will do for their own survival," he warned, as usual being far too insightful for Sideswipe to know how to properly answer him.

"Riiiight, okay." Sides sighed and rubbed his forehelm, having to go through the whole situation all over again before he could think of any solutions for it, like a full system scan before getting rid of any lingering viruses. "So, Twirl and Jetstorm are both missing, with Steeljaw and his freaky little zoo of prisoners-"

"Including Fracture," Drift added through clenched denta.

"Well, he wouldn't hurt Jetstorm, would he?" Sides asked. "I mean, he's got Minicons of his own-"  
"He does not care for them, though," Drift interjected, optics hardening as they glanced over at Slipstream still hunched over his task. "He treats them as nothing more than tools. He doesn't understand the bond between master and student." Though his stance didn't shift, he gripped the handle of one of his swords so tightly that his digits would have soon carved themselves into the metal.

"Never knew you cared that much about them," Sides said quietly, uncertainly, already imagining how quickly that sword could end up lodged in his spark chamber if the wrong words slipped out. But Drift only hummed to himself, still looking at his student with a very reluctant kind of pride.

"I do my best to keep it hidden, lest it distract me from my responsibilities to them. Windblade was much better at..." His vocaliser tripped up on her name, though Sideswipe was still getting used to the idea that the Windblade he thought he knew wasn't Windblade at all. Whoever she really was, Drift clearly adored her. "Despite everything, they think she is safe, that she was merely copied. But I know she was taken. I can feel it..." Something he tried to disguise as a groan filled his vocaliser suddenly with a harsh grunt, something Sideswipe almost recognised as sorrow.

"The last time I spoke with her was barely a vorn ago," Drift went on in his iron-clad tone, now looking at his peds as if worried they'll start rusting. "I was to meet her in Iacon plaza, after apprehending Bumblebee. Somewhere between then and now... Twirl took her from me. And now she has taken Jetstorm." His denta grinded together loudly the more he thought of it, giving Sideswipe even more reason to be nervous as well as covering up the crunch of human footsteps approaching from behind them both.

"You guys talking about the crazy pink bot?" Both mechs were surprised by Russell's sudden appearance, though only Sideswipe made it obvious by leaping up and almost squashing the human.

"Russell, don't do that!" Sideswipe whined, holding a hand over his pounding spark. "And anyway, what d'you know about her? What's Denny told you?" Bumblebee had only revealed what was absolutely necessary to the human's sire, which meant leaving out all details of Airachnid and most of Twirl, especially the reason she was on Earth in the first place. No need to scare the small things even more when they already had their own Decepticons to deal with.

But from how Russell shrugged with his hands in his pockets, it seemed like even Denny was smart enough to not say much. "Well, I asked Dad why Strongarm and Fixit were leaving, and all he said was that Windblade was actually a Minicon like Fixit but like if you fed him nothing but sugar for three days straight. She sounds like one of my aunts, Miko. I mean, she's not really an aunt, but she's my Uncle Rafael's friend so..." The human shook his head, as if he had to dislodge the distraction. "Anyway, I know there's more going on than that, and I wanna know about it. It's like you're all in some kind of club I'm not cool enough to be in or something!"

Though Drift rolled his optics at the human's pout, no doubt reminded of what younger Minicons might do in the midst of a tantrum, Sideswipe couldn't help but emphasise. His eyeridges creased as he knelt down, his knee just reaching the height of Russell's head. "Russ, listen, this is all way too complicated for you. Pit, even _I_ don't get what's going on-"

"That is not as surprising as you might think," Drift muttered, and Sideswipe threw a glare at him before trying to ignore Russell's snort of amusement.

"Just trust us that both Strongarm and Fixit are out doing something important, alright? Like... a prison break, but a hundred times worse and they don't know where it's happening." That was the only way Sideswipe could think to describe it, and though Russell raised his eyebrows he knew he wouldn't get much more than that.

"Fine… anyway, Bumblebee was looking for you." He kicked off towards Slipstream before Sides could ask about what he wanted, though he had enough ideas to make him wary.

"Why not tell the human the truth?" Drift asked, just as Sides was making to leave. The red mech would have thought the answer was obvious, especially to someone like Drift.

"The same reason you wouldn't tell Jet and Slip about what might be happening to Windblade right now." He turned back around before he could see what Drift's reaction was, and found Bumblebee a klick later outside their meagre ration stores with a datapad.

"Got some new type of punishment you wanna test out on me, Bee?"

Bumblebee didn't look up from his pad. "No, smart aft, I just needed someone to help with ration inventory. Last time I asked Grimlock to do it, we 'mysteriously' had an energon shortage afterwards."

An easy enough task, if also unbearably boring, so five klicks into losing count for the fifth time on the same stack of cubes Sideswipe had to talk to stop his processor going numb.

"Can I ask something, Bee?" The yellow mech hummed in what Sides assumed was approval. "Why'd you let Strongarm go so easily? I mean, if it was anyone else wanting to go a million light years away, you'd at least stick a tracker on them or something."

To his surprise, Bee paused while hauling a sorted pile of cubes into storage, blinking blank optics under furrowed eyeridges. He sighed and lazily pushed the rest of the cubes in before answering. "Honestly, Sideswipe? I guess I felt... guilty, about dragging her all the way out here."

Sideswipe tilted his helm. "But she was the one who went through the Ground Bridge after you!" He didn't need to add "with me shackled to her wrist," when he still had the stasis cuff marks on his servo, and with their first meeting firmly burned into his memory anyway.

"Only because I was her commanding officer," Bee said with a shrug. "She was just following me cause she wasn't getting anywhere on Cybertron busting hooligans like you."

"Hey, I think I've done pretty well for myself!" Sides protested.

"You think your parents would agree?" Bee asked, and the one eyeridge he quirked was enough to make Sideswipe deflate with a mumble.

"...Point taken."

Bee at least had the grace to not smother Sides with any more smugness. "I guess the spark of it is... I don't want her just tagging along for whatever prophecy Optimus has laid out for me. I know exactly how that feels. My first time here, on Earth, during the war... all of us were in Optimus' shadow. How do you live up to one of Primus' chosen, after all? I don't want Strongarm having to wait for her chance to shine. She's got her own life to live, her own legacy to make... even if it involves tracking down one of the worst monsters to survive the war, I'm not gonna stand in her way."

By now Bumblebee was staring off into the sky, past the spread of clouds and the ocean of blue that somehow stopped from falling down and flooding everything, as if he could still see the ship carrying her somewhere among the veiled stars. Sideswipe knew that was what Bee was thinking when he followed his gaze, because he almost hoped he could see it too.

"It's nothing she can't handle, Bee. You know that, else you wouldn't have let her go." Sides only noticed his hand was on Bee's shoulder the same moment that the other mech did, and stopped himself from removing it when Bee's optics softened over a grateful smile- before they drifted downwards and his mouth became a frown.

"Are those energon cubes spilling out your subspace?"

Sides seized, vents hitching as he automatically tried to shield his pockets and the pilfered rations flowing out of them. "J-Just a little snack for afterwards!"

 **xx**

With her operation on Earth so thoroughly destroyed by her own agents, Airachnid had the comm relays moved directly into her room, taking on servant duties for herself until she was convinced her entire plan wasn't on the brink of ruin. She needed the constant connection, the endless influx of information to stop her restless claws grinding her throne down to a mound of metal shavings, and herself from going mad. The whole situation made her feel like Soundwave, which wouldn't have been a bad thing if it didn't force her to pity him as a victim of the same mind-numbing, ceaseless drone of data that was haunting her even in her sanctum.

At least Chop Shop knew to only comm when he had something worth sharing.

" _You there, Mum?"_

"As I always am, dear." She soothed her aching forehelm with one of her poised legs propped against it, but the pain was already fading against her son's voice.

" _I've got an update on Twirl. There's other Decepticons, some randoms from the Alchemor, who've gotten her away from the Autobots."_

It wasn't much, but it was more than she knew before. "Is that all?"

" _Yeah, I don't know what they're planning or what she's trying to do with them. I can still try and get her if you-"_

"Don't bother," Airachnid cut in, idly rubbing two of her talons together. "She's failed her mission as far as I'm concerned, leave her to fend for herself. Your main task should still be getting yourself off Earth so I can send you after the Kamuicon. Understand?"

" _Crystal clear, Mum."_

She smiled for the first time since she woke up a few days ago. "Good boy. And look after that new friend of yours, he might come in useful for you." She clicked off, and only noticed Straxus approaching when the glowing Fibers dripping off his frame caught the edge of her optic. He wound the threads through his claws, like limp puppet strings.

"Why not just send a ship down for him, Airachnid?" he asked, somehow knowing how much she really missed her son even if she wouldn't admit it.  
"Because he needs to learn to do things for himself," she answered. "Else he won't get very far without me around."

Straxus huffed a small, brief smirk. "Sounds very similar to how I raised Knockout."

"I think he turned out quite well," Airachnid said with her own, all too knowing kind of smirk. "Though, if rumours are true, he's an _Autobot_ now." She said the word with all the venom foaming over her fangs, filled with regret over what could have been in a better, more fortunate universe than the one spiraling around her.

Straxus knew better than to call attention to it, wisely avoiding the flares of her optics. "Yes, stationed on Velocitron, last time I heard," he added. "You're not the only one keeping tabs on him."

To be expected, Airachnid thought, tilting her helm towards him with the ghostly red light playing against her gilded crown. "Maybe you should pay him a visit. You're always either here or shut up in your lab. Seeing how the rest of the universe is doing might do us all some good."

Straxus' smile was sincere, the suggestion bringing a new light to his optics that almost rivaled the Life Fibers cocooning him, but he shook his helm. "I miss him, but... it's been too long. For all I know, he thinks I died during the war. Besides, he'll have his mother with him and I'm not looking forward to _that_ conversation..." His expression soured just at the thought of it, and Airachnid shrugged the whole idea aside to save him any more mental torment.

"Oh well, back to business." She waved her claws, slicing through the heavy air as she resettled herself on her throne. "With Chop Shop and Twirl sorting themselves out, we can focus on tracking down the Kamuicon."

Straxus couldn't hold in a scoff. "As if it wasn't hard enough the first time."

"But now that it's bonded to a host, it can't stay hidden as a normal Minicon anymore."

"True..." Straxus stroked the small plate of metal cresting his chin, angling his helm thoughtfully. "Did Chop Shop mention what the host looked like?"

"No, but it would be safe to assume we're looking for an Autobot femme, conveniently the only femme among those on Earth according to Twirl's initial reports."

"Strongarm," Straxus said, remembering the same conversation that Airachnid was, the first comm 'Windblade' sent after she made contact with the Autobots and managed to steal herself away from them. "So we have a name, but it won't do us much good if she's already on the run."

"Curious in itself..." Airachnid curled her legs up while the ones on her back folded into each other, one clutch of claws propping her helm up while the other tapped the side of her seat. "Why did she leave Earth so soon after the bond? Did the Kamuicon warn her of something?"

"Or perhaps Twirl herself revealed more than she was meant to," Straxus suggested. "In which case, she'd most likely be going directly after _you_."

Airachnid stared blankly at him, silent, before they both burst into laughter that made the Fibers strung across the room vibrate and swell, as if they shared the amusement. "Oh, I'll enjoy seeing her try," she sighed, dragging a talon under her optic to discourage coolant and promptly recollecting herself. "Have our outlying spies notified about what they should be looking for. As soon as she so much touches another planet, we should know about it."

"And we will," Straxus assured, noting the new orders down on a datapad with Fibers dangling off his claws, leaching across the display until he had to wipe it clean. Airachnid watched the strings float and flit across him like some kind of living mold, blending into his armour, wondering how such thin and finicky things could make such beautiful armour pieces.

"I see you've been hard at work, at least," she said, drawing his attention back while he tried to shake his servo free of a particularly stubborn clump. "I trust Shockwave is carrying on while you're here?"

He gave a smile that made the answer obvious. "Airachnid, you know he'd give up recharge and rations for his experiments if he could."

She did know, because he was Shockwave and the hope of the experiments was all he had left. "I can't imagine he's very good company, though," she mused.

"On the contrary," Straxus said. "Getting data is so much simpler without having to skirt around social cues. I'm surprised all scientists weren't forced through Empurata during the Golden Age, though I suppose I'm grateful for my own sake. And he's only too eager to assist now that he has energon samples to work with."

"I should think so, considering all the effort that went into getting them." Airachnid bared her fangs with a grin, seeing good things on the horizon and in the lazy, content thrum of the Fibers around her. She waved her claws in dismissal. "Keep up the effort, Straxus. I'll expect some results soon."

He bowed, Fibers scraping the floor, and was almost at the door before Airachnid remembered something she meant to ask.

"Before you go... how is the prisoner?"

She saw him turn with a familiar pride in his optics, reflected tenfold by the threads draped over his frame. "Quiet, apart from all her sobbing," he answered. "The punishments don't phase her, though… it seems it's all because she misses her sparkmate."

Airachnid scoffed as Straxus took his leave. "How pathetic. No wonder Twirl hated impersonating her."


	20. Gotta Go Fast

The interior of the Riotjack was just as striking as the outside, wide vaulted hallways decked in violet plating with soft lights overhead blanketing the steel floor, but Strongarm's wonder was erased when she reached the control room at its helm and saw the large green figure hovering near the nav console.

"Uncle Bulk!"

"There she is, the most beautiful gal in the galaxy!" Bulkhead turned his stocky frame around just in time to accept her running embrace, wrapping his hefty servos around her and easily picking her off the ground. Fixit squeaked in the tight hold, but Bulkhead's laugh was so loud and rich, vibrating through Strongarm's frame, that he must have not heard the Minicon. He at least let go when he saw Wheeljack entering the room.

"And there _he_ is, the dumbest mech in the galaxy."

Wheeljack furrowed his eyeridges in protest, but he couldn't press down the smirk on his face. "I missed you too, buddy." The two mechs slammed their hands together and gripped each others digits tightly in the Wrecker version of a fond embrace. "You been keeping the place in good shape for me?"

"Well, I had to fix up some electrical problems you completely ignored and take down some Playmech spreads you left on the corridor walls, but other than that-"

Whether or not Bulkhead was exaggerating, Wheeljack punched his shoulder anyway. "I want those spreads back, by the way," he said quietly, though not enough so to escape Strongarm's hearing and scolding as she flicked his helm fins.

The door hissed open again, and Bulkhead's easy joy faltered slightly. Thunderhoof had managed to catch up, and he lingered awkwardly in the doorway as if he knew he was intruding.

"So, Strongarm, I see you've got some... interesting company. And I don't just mean your dad for once," Bulkhead said uncertainly.

"Yeah, it's a... long story," Strongarm said, rubbing her neck and praying Bulkhead didn't notice her new armour as well. "I guess Earth is just a magnet for adventures."

Thankfully the mention of the planet triggered something in his spark that wiped away all suspicion, and he turned to Wheeljack like he'd just been literally stabbed through the spark. "You were on Earth? Aw, Jackie, why didn't you tell me? I've been meaning to check in on Miko-!"

"I was just down for a quick pick-up job, Bulk," Wheeljack put in with a helpless shrug. "I'm sure the kid knows you're busy, anyway."

"Still, I miss her..." Bulkhead's optics were already dim, and they didn't get any brighter when his comm unit started beeping. "Oh boy, that's Magnus... guess I'm replacing this beast's place in the hangar with the Jackhammer?"

"Just say you got swindled on a trade or something," Wheeljack suggested very unhelpfully, as evidenced by how Bulkhead rolled his optics.

"Something tells me Magnus ain't gonna buy that when he looks at the hull and sees all the carvings you did of him covered in rust." But he knew what he signed up for the nanoklick he answered the call from Wheeljack, the universal magnet for trouble, and from what Strongarm knew it was hardly the worst thing he'd done to cover her sire's aft. So Bulk gave her one last hug, patting her shoulders and almost causing dents from the force of his hands.

"Anyway, good to see you still in one piece, sweetspark. You take care of yourself, and your old mech."

"Hey, I ain't that old!" Wheeljack called out, and Strongarm was still laughing to herself when Bulk's warm plating pulled away. The Wrecker paused next to Thunderhoof as he leaned against the doorframe and scratched at his antlers, giving the Decepticon a glance up and down with narrow optics.

"And you better watch yourself, _Con_." He punctuated the warning with a thick digit jabbing at the faction symbol on his chest, and he was already half-way down the corridor when Thunderhoof summoned a strong enough glare to shoot at him. He growled and muttered, but obviously didn't think a fight was worth bothering with as he just marched into the room with clenched fists and denta, quietly mocking Bulkhead.

" _Ooh, look at me, big tough Wrecker gonna crush your spark by sitting on it_... like to see youse try, stab ya' right through ya' fat aft..."

Likewise Strongarm didn't think it was worth the effort to shut him up, so she just ignored him and asked Wheeljack, "Who's Miko?"

"She's a... very special human," he answered with a bemused smile. "A little bit like you, when you were a sparklin'."

Before Strongarm could ask if that was supposed to be a good thing, Thunderhoof made himself a seat out of a console with his aft pressing down all sorts of buttons that thankfully weren't active yet, whistling air loudly through his vents. "So, we gotta new fancy ship and one crazy bird chick down, mostly thanks to me. What now?"

Wheeljack was on the verge of starting a war over how little Thunderhoof actually helped with Filch, the scratches still stinging on his bumper, but Strongarm stepped in the line of his scowl before things could boil over. What was it about ship control rooms that made those two go for each others throats?

"Well, first things first, we'll need to set up a new comm relay to Earth," she said. "Bee's still wired into the Jackhammer's frequency."

It took only a few klicks to set up the array , calibrate it to Earth's general co-ordinates and then to lock onto the Autobot frequency, with how much more powerful this comm unit was compared to that installed on the Jackhammer. "Bumblebee, it's Strongarm, are you there?"

A few nanoklicks passed before someone who was definitely not Bumblebee answered. _"Uh, Bee's a little occupied right now but... I can pass on whatever you wanna say."_

Strongarm struggled to ignore how much her spark wrenched at the sound of Sideswipe's voice, as nervous as ever and close enough over the parsec static that he could have been right next to her.

"...Okay, then," she said after a deep breath, deadpan being the only emotion she could trust him with hearing right now. "We're currently at the Octa Sol Outpost, at the edge of the system. We've got a new ship, so lock onto this frequency instead of the Jackhammer's. We're still not sure where to head next, since we're still waiting for any leads on Airachnid- unless Twirl's said anything helpful?" She said it all in a rush, simple facts overriding anything else she might accidentally let slip out. Whether or not Sideswipe was having the same problem, if he even still cared that much, he only replied with a low and anxious hiss.

 _"Um... yeah, about Twirl... she, uh... we kinda lost her."_

Strongarm thought she misheard, but no, Wheeljack looked just as confused as her, though not nearly as angry. "What the...?! How do you just lose a femme?!

She gripped the sides of the console, waiting for an answer while Sideswipe was probably still flinching away. Eventually the mech was brave enough to try something. _"...You forget to cherish her?"_

"Oh, for frag's sake..." While Strongarm was holding onto her will to live and burying how much she wanted to punch and kiss Sides at the same time, Bumblebee finally arrived to save her from her own spark.

 _"Sideswipe, get off the microphone. Look, don't panic about Twirl. We know where she is. She's with Steeljaw's gang, and they've managed to kidnap Jetstorm as well. He's giving us an inside link to whatever they're planning, so if Twirl tells them anything we'll hear it as well."_

"Nice to know I've been replaced with a psycho," Thunderhoof muttered.

"Keep us updated on anything new, Bee," Strongarm said, having to smother a suffering sigh. "We'll let you know when we've decided where to head next."

 _"Understood."_ With that the line dropped, and before Strongarm could even think about taking her frustration out on the nearest blank faceplate Steve came running in with energon dripping down his visor, a half empty cube in one hand and vents spilling out lagging breaths.

"I remember!" His announcement held all the triumphant grins that his mask hid away, and he had to gulp down the rest of his fuel before he could gasp on in a wild ramble. "I mean, I remember a little bit, m-my banks are still fuzzy, but... I can see Airachnid! Just after she got that weird armour, on the moon. She... she mentioned... meeting an ally. Someone that could help her with... whatever, I don't know, and she was gonna meet him..." Half-stumbling, half-guided by Strongarm, he managed to brace himself against the control panel.

"Where? Where did she go, Steve?" Strongarm sounded as anxious as she felt, but it took another few moments of groaning and clenched denta before Steve finally grasped the memory he was looking for.

"VELOCITRON! She went to Velocitron!" He clutched his helm like it was a trophy, the intense light of his visor making the screen seem wider than it was. "That's where she said she'd go, when she was getting ready to leave!"

And every Cybertronian knew what Velocitron was, at least every one present in that control room. "That's one of the biggest colonies around," Thunderhoof pointed out, with the experience of someone who'd surely made millions off selling illegal red energon to racers. "If whoever she met happens to still be there, we ain't gonna just bump into him."

"Did she say who she was going to meet there?" Strongarm pressed.

Steve tried to dig deeper into his processor, but he shook his head low. "No, just that... he was a medic. Someone she knew well."

Wheeljack had stayed silent since the mention of the colony, with his scowl only going deeper when he finally decided to speak. "Lucky for us, I know an ex-Con medic who just so happened to transfer to Velocitron after it was rebuilt. Knockout." He glared at Steve, saying the name like he was expecting the drone to be the Con in a very good disguise. But Steve froze, something like a whimper of recognition coming out in a stifled burp.

"What do you know about him?" Strongarm asked, standing in between her sire and the drone and forcing Wheeljack's attention on her. His frown only faded slightly.

"Not much, just that he was Megatron's personal physician. He followed him to Earth on the Nemesis, and mostly just stayed in his med-bay," he explained. "But after the big guy's death, he switched over to the Autobots just before the last stand off with Unicron. I dunno what kinda friends Airachnid made in the Cons... but for all we know, he might've been working with her all this time."

"If so, I'll gladly take a reason to kick that smug aft back to the pit he came from." Wheeljack cracked his knuckles together in anticipation, the same ones that had knocked out (heh) many more Cons before.

To Strongarm, a former Decepticon retaining his loyalty was the most sensible thing she'd had heard of ever since she left Earth, and she was almost relieved by it. "It's our only lead so far, so we might as well check it out."

Wheeljack nodded, but it was a tense motion. "It'll be easy enough to disguise ourselves in all the trade traffic going there. I'll set the course to the nearest Space Bridge. In the meantime, you and Bambi here keep a watch on the bird in the cargo bay-"

A nervous burp from Steve interrupted, and the light of his visor had almost blinked out. "Oh, scrap, I knew I forgot about something…"

"Steve, you _did_ put her in the cargo bay before coming here, didn't you?" Just as Strongarm asked, a screech vibrated through the ship hull and panicked figures streamed out below them past the viewport window. And her groan belonged more in the vocaliser of an ancient Prime than a long-suffering police officer. "I'll take that as a no, then."

 **xx**

Despite her penchant for causing chaos, Filch was surprisingly content in the confines of the cargo hold after they finally managed to drag her into it by the cables she was trying so hard to shred through. At least, that was what Strongarm assumed when she didn't try clawing through the door in the space of five nanoklicks. Maybe the bay itself was shiny enough for her and she'd stave off destroying the ship for now.

Luckily the nearest Space Bridge turned out to be much closer than they thought, drifting just outside the orbit of Proxima Centuri, and though the mass of the Riotjack made it much slower than the Jackhammer's cruiser-build its hyperdrive was far more powerful.

In short, after they all picked out their quarters they only had time for a nap before they were settling into the long queues of visitors and traders, every one on their ironically slow way to Velocitron's docking station.

Except Strongarm couldn't sleep. After almost being forced into stasis twice now, she couldn't even shut herself down willingly. And she could tell she wasn't the only one with that problem.

"Fixit?" The Minicon had been silent the whole journey, quieter than he'd ever been on Earth, and it took a few nanoklicks for him to rouse with his nodes prickling over her protoform.

" _Yes, miss?"_

"I told you before, cut out the 'miss' stuff. Kinda unnecessary since without you I'm practically naked."

" _Right, sorry, force of habit…"_ The optics on her chest closed slowly as Fixit tensed around her. It was hard to emphathise with a living set of armour, but he was still getting used to her like she was to him. She sometimes forgot about that.

"What happened back there?" she asked on the wind of a sigh, staring up at the blank ceiling. "Why could I only keep it up for a few klicks when I lasted a whole round with Twirl without breaking a sweat?"

" _It was your embarrassment,"_ Fixit answered. _"You didn't feel it with Twirl because you didn't know what you looked like back then. But shame, anxiety, feelings like that makes the Fibers fall out of synch, so they have to drain more of your energon to keep working."_

"'Out of synch'? What does that mean?"

" _Life Fibers are symbiotic_ _,"_ he explained. _"_ _If they're not tuned to their host, they don't work effectively. You're my host, and I'm theirs, so we need to be synchronised to get the most out of them."_

Strongarm couldn't help thinking these Life Fibers were just fickle glitches that only worked when they felt like it, not knowing if they could hear her or not she didn't mention that. "Hmph… guess I'll just need to get over being in front of people." Even with her questionable Academy past, she wasn't quite desensitised to exposing herself to giant crowds.

" _If it makes you feel better..._ _I'm impressed that you can wear me for any extended time_ _,"_ Fixit admitted. _"_ _Most femmes can't even take the strain of_ _wearing_ _Life Fibers for a few nanoklicks._ _Partly why Kamuicons stay in hiding, there's so few bots who can even wear us that most just don't bother looking for one."_

That was certainly news to Strongarm, even if it didn't exactly improve her mood. "What makes me so special, then?"

" _Honestly… I don't know_." Fixit would have shrugged if he had the shoulders to do so. _"You have a certain genetic blueprint that just… fits. But you're also larger than the average femme, so you give out more energy."_

Strongarm let out a small smile. "That's one way to say I'm thick framed."

" _Uh, I-I didn't mean it lick-look-like that! I meant it as a compliment-!"_

She didn't quite expect so much spluttering from Fixit, so she struggled to contain peals of laughter. "I'm just messing with you, Fixit. I know I don't have an _average_ frame, but that's what makes me a good officer. And I wouldn't change it for anything in the world." She tapped a fist against her chest, just under the panel of Fixit's bright optic as it looked up at her.

" _Comfort in your own protoform. That's good, it'll help a lot with future synching."_

There was a shift in the ship just as she sat up on her berth, sudden deceleration almost throwing her off it. After all this time, Wheeljack still hadn't gotten the hang of slowing down after a Space Bridge jump.

"Sounds like we're almost there." With nothing else to do but listen to Thunderhoof snore stubbornly next door, Strongarm picked herself up and left the room with a slightly lighter step than she'd entered it with, a very strange and very unfamiliar kind of optimism carrying her to the control room. Wheeljack still sat half-asleep in the captain's chair, inching the ship forwards into every tiny gap that opened up in the endless line stretching out before them. She reclined next to him as he studied the sprawling traffic ahead.

"I swear, as soon as you leave Cybertron's orbit every single bastard with a spark forgets how to work their fraggin' indicators!"

"You ever been to Velocitron before, Dad?"

"Nope. A mech like me wouldn't fit in, you try'n pick a fight with someone and they'd just run a lap around ya'." Wheeljack spoke with the seriousness of someone who'd already faced that humiliation once before.

"What about you, Fixit?" she asked after rolling optics at her father's scowl.

" _The Alchemor would sometimes pick up prisoners from there,"_ the Minicon said. _"I've never had the chance to look around, though."_

"Probably just as well," Wheeljack said with an even sharp edge. "Underneath all that racetrack glamour is some stuff even a Kaonite would wanna stay away from. That's why they're so strict with imports, don't want any new drugs gettin' past."

"I'm sure Thunderhoof would know all about that..." Strongarm meant it as a bitter mutter, but Wheeljack actually thought about it with a hard frown.

"Hm, good point. We'll have to be careful in case they recognise him."

Strongarm scoffed, crossing her legs over and propping her servos behind her helm. "Hope they do, then they can take him off our hands."

In all her hope she didn't notice the door behind her hissing open, and Thunderhoof's convenient arrival almost made her jump out of her chair.

"Don't worry 'bout me, babe. I got connections." He placed a hand on her servorest, almost covering all of it with just his palm as he gave her a very confident, very Sideswipe-esque grin that strangely suited him much better, if only because it made her want to punch him twice as much. Even when Strongarm leaned away and glared at him, he just winked at her before turning his attention to Wheeljack, all trace of cockiness dissolved for now. "How long till we get there?"

"If this damn line doesn't start movin', Earth's sun will have gone supernova by the time we land," Wheeljack answered in a heavy sigh, leaning back and slamming his peds on top of the console- just as the queue shifted forwards in front of them in a huge rush of engine thrust and blurry hull lights. "Ha! And they say hitting things doesn't get results!"

For a Wrecker, hitting things was just about the only way to get results, but Strongarm didn't mention that. She'd just be glad to walk on a solid planet again, even if it wasn't quite Cybertron.

And looking through the viewport, Velocitron was definitely not Cybertron. In place of the towering glittering starscrapers, the jagged layered foundations glowing from within and the spiraling suburbs she'd grown up in, was endless desert and plateaus thrust up under a sprawling maze of highways; asphalt bridges and tarmac rivers spilling out in exhaust-wreathed tiers around buildings that barely broke the shimmering atmosphere line. For someone who simply hovered between streets all her life, the whole network seemed horribly primitive to Strongarm, until Fixit told her that residents of Velocitron still relied on tires and axles and didn't harness their EM fields for transport. They thought anything else was cheating.

Strongarm got the feeling she wouldn't be returning any time soon.

"You two go ahead, I gotta make sure the engines are powered down." Yet even as Wheeljack said it, Strongarm caught him leaning back into his usual lazy-aft pose, the same one he could (and would) use to spend breems snoring away and not moving an inch. So at least he wouldn't cause them any trouble with the dock officials this time.

Steve was already one step ahead of him, curled around an empty energon cube and passed out in one of the main hallways just out of range of his room. Thunderhoof was about to kick him awake, but Strongarm shoved past him and just stepped over the sleeping drone, forcing Thunderhoof to follow suit as they emerged into the hectic but comforting bustle of the docking bay.

And not five nanoklicks passed before a restless orange femme in need of a cold and strong drink glided up to them on wheels to block their way off the loading ramp.

"Hold it!" She held up a hand while the other clutched a long datapad filled from edge to edge with columns of tiny figures. Both Thunderhoof and Strongarm could have bowled her over in one step, but they were so stunned by her appearance that all they could do was stare down at her and her piercing blue glare. "Just where do you think you're going?"

The question came out in such a frenzied jumble, each word crashing into each other like a verbal traffic jam, that Strongarm couldn't even understand it at first. But the femme refused to repeat it, and just kept glaring as Strongarm tried to make sense of it. "Uh... we're looking for a medic-"

But her answer was evidently too slow, as the official cut it off after a flashing glance down at her datapad. "All off-world visitors outside race seasons must report to the immigration office for screening. And we need to search your cargo hold for narcotics." Her vocaliser slowed down at the end of the order, but it came with a hard steel squint up at Thunderhoof. "Speaking of which, _you_ look a bit familiar..."

Just as Wheeljack predicted, their unconventional hitchhiker was already busted. Not that Thunderhoof seemed bothered. "I might'a fragged your carrier a while ago," he suggested, somehow keeping a straight face as both femmes' expressions twisted into shock and, in the case of the orange one, rage with her datapad almost cracking under her fierce grip.

"HOW _DARE_ YO-!"

Another mech reached them before she could get her full outburst out. "Lickety, are you harassing the traders again?"

Lickety turned around swiftly on her shaking wheels, looking at the blue mech with the same surprise as the bots she was in the verge of detaining. Her anger faded only slightly at the sight of him, but it returned in full force when she looked back at Thunderhoof who seemed as bored as someone waiting in line for a paint buffing.

"If anything _they're_ harassing me! I'm just following protocol!" She flung a digit out in a tangerine blur towards them, making Strongarm feel a little insulted considering she'd barely even said five words since she arrived.

The mech looked at them both, focusing mostly on Thunderhoof with icy blank optics, but he was already guiding Lickety away from them. "I'll take it from here. There's a ship full of hanar you can bully just docking in Bay C."

Lickety seemed about to protest, but something about the mech's touch stopped her from arguing. She threw one last glare over at Thunderhoof before skating away, joining a crowd of other similarly wheeled workers.

Now with the femme blended into the background of the bay, the mech faced Thunderhoof with a cautious but very obvious recognition as the flared wings on either side of his helm twitched. "Thunderhoof." He tried to keep the greeting neutral, but nothing could have covered the tremor his vocaliser injected into it. Strongarm recognised it from the confessions of hundreds of captured criminals, with bosses far more dangerous than themselves. And even if she didn't, Thunderhoof's cold grin told her all that needed to be said.

"I see you remember me, Blurr."

"I've been trying to forget." He kept his voice as low as possible, slower than even most Cybertronians, but Thunderhoof didn't seem to like what he heard. He leaned down so he could stare right into Blurr's optics, close enough to snap his helm off with his fist if he wanted to. Strongarm was already tense as she felt Fixit stinging into her protoform with apprehension, just in case it came to that.

"Now you keep lettin' your jawplate flap like that, my own might get a little loose," Thunderhoof said slowly, roughly, each word weighed down with a threat like lead. "And you don't want that happenin' around the Velocitron Racin' Association, do ya'?"

Blurr's vibrant blue paint went visibly paler, and he blinked against the intensity of the red drilling into him. "...Point taken." He stepped back out of Thunderhoof's oppressive presence, actually heaving relief through his vents when the Decepticon didn't close the space between them again. "S-Sorry about Lickety-Split, she's gunning for a promotion. I would've got her out of the way sooner if... I'd noticed."

Thunderhoof straightened himself, the mask of terror collapsing into one of casual, rude indifference. Strongarm hadn't realised she'd been holding in her vents until her spark gasped and Fixit loosened around her. "You fraggin' her?" he asked.

Blurr blinked again, keeping his gaze firmly stapled down. "On and off, mostly..."

Thunderhoof shrugged. "Eh, you could do better." And then he was slipping past the drained mech like he was just part of the scenery, leaving Strongarm to be horrified at the whole exchange as she rushed to set things right.

"Sir, I am _so_ sorry, I wouldn't normally be with mechs like him-"

"I-It's fine, ma'am, really," Blurr said quietly, waving a servo aside as it dangled from his sagging shoulders. "You guys get through, I don't get in trouble, everyone's happy." That was an outright lie because only Thunderhoof was happy, but Blurr wouldn't let her try to ease his lingering fear. He just pulled a datapad out with a shaking servo, almost as if nothing happened. "But since you're here, for appearances sake, I still need a name and purpose of visit."

"Strongarm, sir. We're here to find someone. A medic called Knockout?" She didn't expect the second bot she'd met to give her directions right to his doorstep, but despite his trauma Blurr seemed to recognise the name as he took down the details.

"Sounds familiar... the biggest med center is in Degapex. Chances are he's working there if he's important enough for visitors."

At least now they had somewhere to go. "Thank you." Blurr nodded with a gentle smile as Strongarm left, which made her punch Thunderhoof hard in the shoulder when she managed to catch up to him.

"What the Pit was that all about?!"

Thunderhoof glanced at the barely dented armour left by her fist, but despite her outrage it was like tapping a slab of bedrock. He smirked, obviously proud of himself. "Like I said, babe, I got connections. Our friend Blurr earned me a lotta credits when he ran in the NitrOverride Prix a few stellar cycles back. Course it was cause I made sure his tanks were full of red energon and the physicians all looked the other way... but a win's a win, huh? Guy's so paranoid at bein' found out that he doesn't race anymore."

It would have been so easy to knock his front denta out right then, but Strongarm felt the hot anger fading as they approached the exit of the docking station. "Well... at least we're in. And we know where to go."

"Knew you'd see it my way." Thunderhoof was about to clap her on the back, but something he felt like razors jutting out her EM field made him think better of it.


	21. First Impressions Of Old Friends

"So here's what I'm thinkin'," Thunderhoof said after they finally managed to navigate the maze of roads that lead to Degapex, forced to forsake alt-modes since Strongarm's T Cog still refused to even work with a Minicon strapped all around her. The city crept up on them in the horizon, almost buried beneath the highways that its buildings rose up between, only as high as the tallest slice of tarmac. "I be bad cop and you be good cop. Medics are always wimps, one hit from me and he'll be spillin' his tanks before I spill his-"

"Here's what _I'm_ thinking," Strongarm countered, keeping her voice low now that she'd seen the entrance to the medical center that swelled out of the city's side. "You keep your mouth shut before you get us both arrested!" Fixit hummed in agreement, clinging tighter in his more modest mode to Strongarm's tense frame.

"...I like my plan better," Thunderhoof muttered, but something about the blindingly clean whiteness of the reception area before them must have suppressed any other schemes rattling in his helm. It wasn't much different from hospitals on Cybertron, except most of the patients waiting only had snapped axles, shattered headlights or blown-out exhaust pipes. Even on a planet dedicated to speed, there was a limit to how fast a bot could safely go. These ones just didn't care about that, which was fortunate since they were too busy cradling their injuries to notice that the new arrivals weren't built like Velocitronians, or that the femme approaching the front desk had some very strange armour that kept blinking nervously. If anything, most Velocitronians found Thunderhoof more curious to look at, with his permanently curdled expression and horns weighing down each step he took.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Strongarm said, catching the attention of a red and white femme behind the desk. "We're looking for a physician called Knockout."

The femme gave both bots long looks, especially Thunderhoof, before deciding she wasn't paid enough to ask about anything but the essential. "Do you have an appointment with him?" she asked, with the weary tone of someone who hadn't gone a day without hearing some half-revved excuse from a teenspark wanting to be seen urgently. Which was exactly what Strongarm was, and she only had her excuse ready after she threw a panicked glance aside at Thunderhoof.

"Not officially, but my, uh... companion has horribly grotesque growths coming out of his helm." Strongarm reached up to pull down one of the antler struts hovering over her, making Thunderhoof yelp in pain as he almost toppled over. "Poor mech can barely walk. We need to get them checked out ASAP, specifically by Knockout." It was a blind bluff, considering she didn't even know what kind of medicine Knockout specialised in, but either she got lucky or the receptionist had never seen a beastformer before from how wide her optics snapped open. Now that Strongarm thought about it, it was unlikely _anyone_ on Velocitron had seen anything feral, with all wilderness either scorched sand or paved over with asphalt and laybys.

"Well, his schedule's usually all full, but since this is such a serious case he has a free breem just now," the receptionist said, focusing fully on the screen in front of her with stray, flinching glances at Thunderhoof. "Take the hoverpad to the second floor and then a right down the first corridor. His office is the one bigger than all the other ones." She waved down past the desk to the end of a corridor flanked by doors, where the hoverpads would be waiting for passengers.

"Thank you," Strongarm said, tugging Thunderhoof along by the antler she was still grasping to make sure he kept the act up. "Come along, you poor thing, it'll be over soon." And poor Thunderhoof could only grunt and snort as he was dragged further into any beastformer's nightmare; somewhere sterile and full of sharp needles. Luckily the receptionist did not watch them leave, still shuddering from the sight of those pronged 'growths'.

"That was a lil' uncalled for," Thunderhoof mumbled on the hoverpad, gingerly massaging where his left horn still had digit imprints on it.

"It got us in, didn't it?" Strongarm asked, forcing him to know how she felt about threatening dock officials just to avoid paperwork. "Though... maybe I did grip a little too hard," she admitted, just as doors opened on the second floor.

The same impossibly white walls greeted them, with glowing red markings set into the tiled ground that pointed to different departments. According to the instructions, Knockout's office lay at the end of the line marked as 'overhauls', with thick windows running down either side of it that looked out onto the corridors outside. Strongarm was only allowed a nanoklick to glance through one of the windows before she saw that their medic wasn't alone, forced to duck down where the wall would shield her. Thunderhoof followed suit, though he had to crawl along the floor to stop his horns giving them away.

Though the walls must have been thick, she could hear a femme speaking, the same one she'd seen only as an orange and red blur opposite who must have been Knockout. Part of her spark suspected Fixit of cranking up his audios so they could both eavesdrop.

"...And you know I don't like you locking yourself up in this office all day, Knockout. You need to talk to bots who aren't just wanting a new faceplate from you. It's bad enough we hardly get to see Sunny and Sides nowadays, now my own son is practically avoiding me!"

"Mother, as I've told you several times before, I. Am. _Busy_. I can't just shove off appointments to drop in on one of your little tea parties-"

"It is a _fashion show_ , darling-"

"-just so you can show me off to all your friends!"

"Well, if you're going to be like that I'll just give your place on the guest list to someone else."

"Fine by me."

"...Will you at least come to the going away party, before I and Rodimus return to Cybertron?"

"...Of course, mother."

After that, speech was replaced with a shuffle of plating and the steady tap of peds coming closer and closer. The once-blurry femme emerged from a door just in front of Strongarm, luckily heading the other way with her back to the would-be intruders. A plume of flame reaching out from her helm danced after her, with a hint of its heat wafting back against Strongarm's faceplate. The thought of a bot just walking around with fire coming out of their processor surprised her so much that she didn't hear Thunderhoof heaving himself up and stamping forwards to enter the door while it was still open.

"Alright, I'm tired of sneakin' round..."

"Thunderhoof, get back!" By the time Strongarm managed to get onto her peds, even with Fixit doing his fair share to pull her up, Thunderhoof had already marched inside and was no doubt almost crushing Knockout's helm under his ped.

"Right, listen here, pretty boy, we got questions and you got answers to 'em, so start talkin'!"

Luckily Knockout was still unharmed when Strongarm made it to the doorway, red armour somehow managing to shine brighter than the squeaky clean walls surrounding him. And if she didn't already know he was once a Decepticon, the wide red optics staring up at Thunderhoof would have made it obvious enough.

"...Excuse me?" It was a very calm reaction considering how most might face a bristling set of rakes all too ready to spear through their frame. Knockout just looked confused rather than scared, but that didn't deter Thunderhoof.

"And if you think you can distract us with sexiness, then you got another damn thing coming-!"

As the only one not being threatened by impaling, Strongarm took it upon herself to defuse the situation the only way she knew how; bashing a fist across Thunderhoof's face to get him out of Knockout's way and sagged useless on the floor. "Thunderhoof, shut up."

Now Knockout had a chance to recover, and he took hold of it by backing up towards his desk. "Look, I've never seen either of you before in my life, so unless you want to be dragged out by-!" He was pointing a claw between them, but his strength failed and servo went limp as soon as it landed on Strongarm. He blinked, red seizure flashes across his optics, and his mouth hung open as he drifted towards her like Thunderhoof had just sunk into the ground, even though he was definitely still lying there scowling up at him.

"Hey, I'm still talkin' to you!"

But Knockout expertly ignored him, his focus riveted on Strongarm and, more importantly, Fixit. It was a near mirror of how Steve stared at her, like he was standing in front of the last member of an extinct species.

"Ma'am... may I ask where you got that armour?" He didn't even try making the question sound innocent as his claws twitched in front of him, as if they were aching to grab her. Strongarm fought the urge to flinch, but at least there was no need to keep Fixit quiet anymore when it was clear they'd followed the right trail.

"Funny you should ask, but I'm not the one who can answer that," she said.

" _That would be me,_ " Fixit quipped, and before his voice even faded Knockout had leapt back almost halfway across the room in shock.

"A... a l-living Kamuicon...?" His vents were ragged, his spark no doubt trying to keep itself within his heaving chestplates. "Made out of Life Fibers?"

" _100%, sir,"_ Fixit answered, sounding quite proud of it.

Knockout's shock was slow to fade but something else was already replacing it; awe. He approached again and circled Strongarm like she was a sculpture while muttering past wide, anxious smiles. "This is... this is incredible, I never...I never thought-!"

Only when he stopped to draw curtains across his office windows, drenching the room in shadow, did Strongarm manage to get a word past his amazed stuttering. "Uh, I don't mean to rain on the parade but we're here about something else-"

"Yes, yes, all in due time, just let me…" Despite the darkness Knockout's armour still managed to gleam, giving him away before his claws did when he tried prodding around her chestplates.

"Hey, what the Pit-!"

"Calm down, dear, I'm just checking-" Whatever his excuse was ended up being squashed aside as Strongarm seized his servo and pinned it against his back, slamming his face against one of the windows right through where the curtains parted.

"You're not laying a fragging hand on me until you tell me what I wanna know!" she growled, tightening her grip on Knockout's neck as he grunted against the smothering glass. Strongarm would have gladly kept it up if not for Fixit tugging at her servos, urging her to release Knockout as well as the medic's own muffled wheezing.

"If you'd… just… let go of my helm…" Strongarm pulled him back before finally relinquishing her hold, leaving Knockout to gasp in relief and rub gingerly at his faceplate. "Fine, fine, make it quick…"

Ignoring Thunderhoof's impressed expression beside her and his mutter of, "So much for you being the good cop," Strongarm crossed her servos over her chest more out of self-consciousness than seriousness, though the anxious light from Fixit's optics still managed to leak through. "What do you know about Airachnid?"

Just hearing her name made Knockout's irritation dissolve like acid had just been splashed in his face to drip into his frozen wide optics. At least that confirmed he knew who Airachnid was. "Who sent you here?"

"We asked first, ya sleazy-!" Again Thunderhoof was silenced by Strongarm shoving him aside by his chestplate and taking his place in Knockout's line of sight.

"A Vehicon," she answered, as simply as she could despite all that had happened in just the past decacycle. "We found him on Earth's moon, abandoned by Airachnid. He said she'd managed to escape and was planning to meet you here on Velocitron."

Knockout buried all his previous panic under a quirked eyeridge, red and glittering and doubtful like the rest of him. "Is that so? The same Airachnid who hasn't been sighted in over fifteen stellar cycles?" he asked, though his skepticism was a shallow effort over something still trembling in his vocaliser, something very much like fear. And yet he still glanced down at Fixit's wide optics as if expecting him to speak again.

Strongarm narrowed her glare to the point of a dagger. "Yeah, so if you want to know anything more about Fixit you'd better tell us what she's up to!"

Fixit squirmed at being dragged into the conversation, while Knockout regarded the digit Strongarm brandished at him with little more than mild amusement. "Are you trying to threaten me, dear?"

She lowered the digit to make it stab against his chest. "Usually I don't need to _try_."

Knockout stared down his olfactories at her, somehow looking down even though she was taller than him.

"...You'd both better sit down, then," he said slowly. Guided by only Primus-knows-what he somehow found his desk in the dark and instantly blinded both Strongarm and Thunderhoof with the light of a plasma lamp. Once the burn faded from their optics they both perched on the padded couch opposite the desk and its cold glow, with ample space left between them. Thunderhoof helped himself to a bowl of crystalgon in front of him while Knockout pressed a hand to his forehelm, shielding the top half of his face. When he pulled it away so he could lean over his desk, he seemed to age another two centuries.

"Right... first things first. Just who the Pit are you two?" he asked, and for some reason Strongarm had to take a moment to think about the answer.  
"I'm Strongarm," she said. "Cadet of the Autobot Police Force in Iacon. My Kamuicon is Fixit. And this is... Thunderhoof. A Decepticon."

Knockout now finally gave Thunderhoof some attention while he was busy stuffing his face to rival Steve's greed, with a half-formed huff lodged in his throat. "And here I thought all the Cons were stamped out by now..."

Fangs jutted over Thunderhoof's sugar-stained lips as he growled, clawing at the plush of the sofa as his digits made sharp fists. "Just because _you_ decided to switch to the winning side doesn't mean we all gotta lie down and let the Autobots walk all over us!" It was a challenge that Knockout wasn't interested in rising to. Instead he just pressed something on his desk when a series of blips sounded from it, and went on to the next question as he turned back to Strongarm.  
"And why does a young femme like you want to go chasing after a dead bot?"

"Because she's _not_ dead," Strongarm answered with a firm grip on every word. "She sent someone to Earth to try and steal Fixit, so who knows what else she's doing out there? You were with the Cons before the war, _you_ know how dangerous she is, so wipe that damn smirk off your face and tell me what you know about her already!"

Strongarm had slammed her servos on the desk by now, almost butting her helm against Knockout's from how she thrust her glare towards him. Not that he even seemed to notice.

"My, my, you _are_ persistent…" From this angle Fixit's optics were level with the medic's, and he seemed far more invested in him (or he was just taking the chance to ogle her chestplates). But before Strongarm could threaten to slap his helm upwards he pushed himself up so he was now taller than her hunched-over frame as he started pacing, dragging his crimson-edged shine behind him.

"Unfortunately for you, everything I have on Airachnid is outdated. Old medical records, mission reports, as well as my near-certainty that she's dead. Because the last time I saw her, she was trapped in an Insecticon pod. The last I _heard_ of her was a report that confirmed she was in quarantine on Earth's moon and would eventually starve to death."

"Bullslag," Strongarm spat, having read the exact same report herself.

"It's true, I'm afraid. I have no better idea than you of where she is now, if she really is still alive."

Thunderhoof was grumbling low to himself behind a cluster of crystalgon still dissolving on his glossa, impatience building up all over again. "Then why the Pit did we get told she was gonna meet you here!?"

Knockout let his mouth hang open with a sad, small smile twitching over it. He seemed embarrassed to answer. "When we were stationed on Earth, I often talked about settling here after the war... if I survived and if our home was restored. It seems she knew me better than I knew myself."

Noticing his wistful tone with sharply rising suspicion, Strongarm asked, "If you're not helping her, then why would she have wanted to meet you?"

Knockout let his peds carry his frame back to his desk before he answered, each word slow and heavy with something he didn't quite want to admit, especially not to a pair of strangers. But he did so anyway.

"If I had to guess... it would be because when she got stranded on Earth's moon, she was carrying my sparkling."

Strongarm and Thunderhoof both expressed their shock in different ways.

"You... she was _pregnant_?"

" _You_ banged one of the most dangerous Cons ever sparked? I mean I get crazy can be hot sometimes, but-" Strongarm's elbow hit square against Thunderhoof's side, just missing the bowl balanced in his lap, before he could finish that thought.

Knockout didn't seem phased; if anything he just looked sad, caught in his own memories with his optics glassed over with something much older than he was. Even when another round of blips came from his desk his digit was slow to cease them with a button press. "We agreed to keep it a secret, though I half expected her to have it terminated. Airachnid... with that frame, it was so easy to forget she was a monster. But I worked under Megatron himself, and even he didn't hold a candle to how evil that spark of hers could be."

As expected, Thunderhoof didn't exactly emphathise. "How do we know you're not just bluffin'?"  
"I can only swear on that child's spark that I'm telling the truth," Knockout said, claws spread over his chest, with a pained glint in his optics that was so similar to those that flashed too often in Wheeljack's that Strongarm knew he wasn't lying. And that their only lead was now a dead end.

While she cursed herself for wasting so much time, Knockout bowed his helm and braced himself on his desk as he sighed, before addressing his guests with tired words. "Alive or not, if you're really planning on going after her then let me tell you from experience that you're not the first to go out trying find her. And you won't be the last to fail."

"The worst we can do is fail," Strongarm said. "And that's reason enough to try anyway."

Knockout was about to roll his optics, but he only got as far as sharply creasing an eyeridge. "Just you and your Kamuicon against the forces of nature… Fixit, hmm?"

The third time Knockout stared right into Fixit's optics made him stab his haywire nodes right into Strongarm's protoform, jolting her into covering her chestplates with her servos again. It wasn't nearly as aggressive a stance as she would have liked, but it would have to do. "Since you're so _interested_ in him, why don't you tell me how you know what he is?"

From the look on Knockout's face, it was like he'd been waiting all this time for her to ask that. "It seems we both have something the other bot wants," he said, practically oozing superiority.

"All I wanted to know is where Airachnid is. You've already said you don't know, so we have nothing more to discuss-" Strongarm was rising to her peds, gritting her denta while Fixit still clung tightly to her, but Knockout snapped out of his slimy stare to shoot up and reach out for her.

"Now, now, let's not be hasty," he said, waiting until she sank back down to take his own seat behind his desk. "I have more to offer than just Airachnid… if your friend would like to step outside for a klick."

Thunderhoof looked up from his casual snacking, a hand halfway between candy and mouth while both started to sour. "I ain't goin' nowhere, ya' smug aft-!"

"You heard him, Thunderhoof," Strongarm cut in, though this was a rare occasion where she was sorely tempted to not hold him back. "Go stand watch or something."

Thunderhoof gave her a slack-jawed glare with half-chewed energon covering his fangs, finally closing his mouth in a scowl and holding the half-empty bowl close to his chest in a minor rebellion as he stomped towards the door trailing bitter mutters. "Was gettin' sick'a lookin' at that fragger anyway…"

Knockout watched him until he left, a tiny slit of light from the open door hardly spilling halfway across the floor before it was locked away again. "And here I thought he'd never leave," the medic sighed, burning through the dark with his hooded optics. Strongarm faced them head-on.

"He scare you too much?" she asked.

"Hardly. I just didn't want him knowing what should be kept between as few bots as possible." He slipped behind his desk to poke at unseen buttons and pads as he kept talking to himself. "Bad enough that he's already aware of your Kamuicon…"

"What's so bad about that?" Strongarm asked, servos still bolted over her chest.

"There's far more bots than just Airachnid who would do anything to get their claws on one of those," Knockout answered, flashing her a far-too-knowing smile as he went to sit on the edge of his desk so he was directly in front of her, whether she liked it or not. "Do you really know what kind of technology you're in possession of, Strongarm?"

He spoke like she was a sparkling trying to read a textbook on quantum physics. That would have been enough to offend her if not for Fixit being reduced to nothing more than a gadget. "He's not 'technology', he's my friend! And he didn't want to get dragged into this slag any more than I did!" The only reason she didn't shoot up from her seat to confront Knockout properly was so she could avoid going any closer to him.

"You've already bonded with him?" he asked. "That's adorable."

Now she had no more reason to stay seated. Strongarm launched from her chair to Knockout's face, jabbing a digit at the spear of metal glinting at her on his chin, mocking her like the rest of his frame. "Cut the slag out of your vocaliser before I cut it out myself, and start saying something useful! If you're not working with Airachnid and whatever she wants with Kamuicons, just how the Pit do you know what they are when no one else has even heard of them?"

Despite their faceplates being just inches away, Knockout didn't flinch. Still holding a level stare with her, he pushed her digit aside and brushed at his chin as if he'd just been assaulted by dust. "For now let's just say I _inherited_ the knowledge, and that you're not the first femme I've seen with her own Kamuicon," he answered, sliding out of Strongarm's glare with the ease of a well-oiled gear and leaving her to track him as he paced in the shadows again. "Few bots know they exist, true. But even fewer know how they work, and what they're capable of. How they get their power. Why, I might be the only other bot in the galaxy who knows more about what Fixit is than he himself does. How much has he told you about how he fits you?"

He faced her to receive her reply, but he might as well have done it just to see how annoyed she was. "None of your damn business," she snapped, but Knockout's optics only glittered ever brighter as Fixit's bloomed ever wider below her neck.

"He's neglected certain details in the past, hasn't he?" he went on, looking right at Fixit to freeze him onto Strongarm's protoform, with every nerve node thrumming frantically against her as he tensed, like a cluster of fireworks along her bare skin.

" _Strongarm, I-I swear I just forgot to tell you! I'd never let you get hurt on purpose!"_

Whether or not Knockout was listening to Fixit's pleas, they didn't stop him prying deeper as he carried himself closer with carefully calculated steps. "He didn't warn you about fusing with your very core and stripping you down-"

" _I can't change how I look!"_

"Gorging on your own energon-"

" _I have to o-or else the Fibers will die!"_

"Until you've almost collapsed from the strain of holding all that power in your poor little spark-"

"Both of you, _shut up_!" The breaking point for Strongarm was not Fixit's near-suffocating hold on her frame, nor the agitated pulse of his energon or even his incessant begging. It was the very tip of Knockout's claw pressed slightly against her chest, right between the Kamuicon's wide optics, almost piercing through to the bare protoform beneath. She felt the sting for less than a nanoklick before she tore out of Fixit's grip and slammed the wandering servo away, letting it tear at the surface of her armour as she forced it down onto the desk where it wouldn't reach for her again. Knockout didn't struggle, didn't dare to use his other servo instead. He just watched her, a picture of rage reflected in his optics as she heaved frustration out of her vents like a digger throwing out the foundations of a world behind it as it trundled blindly onwards. Even when she finally calmed herself, no longer having to fight against Fixit as he relaxed over her, there was a cold silence before Knockout spoke again.

"I can help ease that strain for you," he said softly.

Strongarm faced him and his patronising gentleness with a scowl, but she released his servo anyway. "How?"

Knockout flashed a smile as he rubbed at his wrist, examining the paint closely. "Despite how you defend him, it's clear you don't trust your Kamuicon. You guard your tanks and spark from him because you don't believe that he'll do much good for you in exchange." He nodded to himself when he found the paint free of scuffs, and returned to his seat behind his desk. "Synchronising with your Kamuicon is all about trust," he continued. "You have to trust him not to leave you an empty husk, not to abandon you to the mercy of a lecherous audience…"

Again Fixit tensed, not quite as much as last time but enough to squeeze a retort out of Strongarm. "I already know about synchronising. You've got nothing new to scare me with."

Knockout raised an eyeridge, unveiling surprise over his faceplate. "Do you know _how_ to synchronise?"

"I'll figure it out eventually," she said.

Now Knockout's surprise was clouded by disbelief, but he just shook his helm. "Well, if you're really so intent on staying ignorant… I can also help you find Airachnid. I might not know where she is, but I do know what she leaves behind wherever she goes. I'm the only one who's been that close to her and lived to speak about it. So why not listen to what I have to say?" He tented his claws with the ease of a professional negotiator, not quite shielding an expression bordering dangerously on devious, but not enough so that Strongarm could instantly reject his offer. Not when it was her best bet at getting any further along on her mission.

"Start talking, then," she ordered, but Knockout just gave her a flat smile as he shook his helm again.

"My dear, silence may be golden but my words are worth much more," he said, leaning back swiftly and holding up a claw before Strongarm could utter outrage. "So I'd like to make a deal with you. Something I'm sure you won't mind. You let me take a closer look at your Kamuicon... and I'll tell you everything you want to know. Simple as that."

Strongarm blinked, her faceplate creasing, knowing already that nothing was 'simple as that'. "You... want to study Fixit?"  
"I've never gotten hold of a real Kamuicon before, you understand. And I might never see one again." His gaze on Fixit brightened, and it was hard to not interpret his reasoning as a threat, or a prediction. "Besides, the more I know about him and how he works, the more I can help you in turn. I'm sure by now you have no issue with _undressing yourself_ for others…"

Knockout's optics slipped down her like oil, and only her shivers from it stopped Strongarm slamming a hard-worn fist through his grin. Fixit especially pricked at her protoform, and with a hand rubbing under his optic she wondered if she was just imagining the nerves rising under her digits. "You're not gonna… dissect him or anything?"

Knockout scoffed. "Even I wouldn't risk losing such a rare specimen by cutting it open."

As much as Strongarm hated to think about giving anything to a former Con, especially one who obviously still thought like one, she had no alternative. She hoped Fixit would understand that as well.

"...Fine. But that's all you're getting out of me."

"More than enough, my dear. More than enough," Knockout declared past a huge grin, clapping his hands together and kicking off his seat to gracefully stand back up. "My free breem's almost over, but return tomorrow around noon and we can-" Once again, something blipped on his desk, but rather than just giving it the usual look of annoyance he treated it like a nuclear warning siren.

"Now it's _definitely_ time for you to leave," he muttered as he rushed to open his office curtains, flooding the room with stinging light that left Strongarm stumbling as Knockout pushed her towards the door.

"What, why? Who's trying to comm you?" she asked, rubbing her optics as they struggled to adjust.

"Someone I never like to hang up on," was all Knockout answered with, leaving Strongarm hovering in the doorway as he rushed back to his desk. The blips ceased, but this time a blank screen on the wall beside his desk fizzled into life with annoyance etched on a face that Strongarm instantly recognised, even with spots still flying in her vision.

 _"Knockout, why is it I need to comm you three times in a row before you decide to answer?_ "  
"Because you always sound cute when you're desperate for something, Arcee," Knockout lilted, and that was all the confirmation Strongarm needed when there was only one Arcee on Cybertron. Though she couldn't see much of her face from her current angle, it seemed she hadn't changed at all from the femme who had taught her everything before Academy graduation- except right now she was shooting daggers through the glass screen at Knockout's comfortably smug face.

 _"Really? Cause Springer's just a room away, we can see what he thinks about me being_ cute _-"_

And Knockout's face fell in what must have been a world record time. "N-no, no, that won't be necessary... what do you want?"

 _"I wanna speak to your sparkling of a stepsire, cause he doesn't even have his comm unit turned on."_

"Well _I_ don't know where he is, but he certainly isn't here. Firestar left over ten klicks ago-"

The door shut before Strongarm could hear any more, and she thought better of barging in out of spite. "Thanks for nothing, then," she spat, as Fixit seemed to sag in relief around her. It was like he'd been trying not to collapse while Knockout was watching.

"Hey, Fixit… he didn't freak you out, did he?" she asked.  
If he had his servos, she was sure he would have been shaking them together even as he confidently said, " _I've seen ramroaches more bet-pet-threatening than him."_ He breathed out, and seemed to regain his strength from somewhere. _"Anyway, he can't hide_ everything _from us. Check your subspace._ "

Strongarm did, finding another datapad where there certainly wasn't one before. "Fixit! Where'd you get this?!"

" _Seems Knockout was in such a hurry to get us out that he didn't notice me swiping it,"_ he said, pride literally swelling him around her chestplates.

"Usually I don't condone stealing, but this is worth an exception," she said, letting a smile of small triumph tug at her lips as she patted Fixit. "Come on, let's go find Thunderhoof before he gets himself arrested again."


	22. Family Business

To Strongarm's relief and surprise, Thunderhoof hadn't wandered far enough to start a diplomatic incident. He seemed to have spent most of his time trying to scrub his denta free of the sticky sugar stains clinging to his mouth, a digit still lodged between them when he spotted her approaching and tried to wipe off away the drool on his chin. Not exactly a good image for a mob boss, but he cleaned himself up by the time she stopped in front of him.

"I'm guessin' that slagger kicked ya' out for kickin' his smug faceplate back to Cybertron?" he asked,

"Unfortunately, no," Strongarm said, doubtful that Knockout would have even noticed one of his optics falling out from how focused they were on her and Fixit and nothing else. "He just had someone more interesting to talk to. We'll have to come back tomorrow anyway, so I can save any well-earned beatings till then."

The promise of another visit made Thunderhoof's horns curl in a scowl that matched his face. "Fan fraggin' tastic. He better stock back up on energon by the time we get back here." He threw aside the empty bowl for a cleaning drone to deal with as he lead the way back to the hoverpads. "What did he want back there, anyhow?"

"From how he put it, he wants Fixit mounted up on his wall," Strongarm said, only slightly joking as Fixit himself knew. "But he can at least get us on the right track to Airachnid."

Thunderhoof snorted as the hoverpad dropped from beneath them. "I doubt that for some reason."

Strongarm knew the reason, because it was why she doubted it as well. But it was all they had to go for, if not better than nothing. At least nothing couldn't eventually get them all killed.

Though there was really no point in regretting it now. So what if she got into trouble? So what if she died? Bots in the war had risked and survived worse than this. Bots like Knockout himself. Someone who fragged Airachnid, actually had a child with the Decepticon's personal assassin, and _survived_ to talk about it.

It was only when that hit her, on the loading ramp of the Riotjack, that she became very scared of Knockout. Which at least dulled the shock of seeing Filch nibbling on a steel bar by Wheeljack's peds in the control room. By this point in her life, Strongarm had learned it was sometimes best not to ask, especially where her sire was concerned, but she knew she'd rather have an answer than be left thinking he was plotting something.

"Dad... why the Pit is Filch out of her cell?"

Wheeljack only just noticed her return, straightening suddenly in his seat, and he met her long-suffering scowl with one of his many and permanent grins. "Cause she ain't so bad, once she calms down. Just give her somethin' shiny, and she's a lil' darlin'."He dangled digits down near the Corvicon's beak and somehow didn't get them snapped off."So, how'd it go? Knockout wasn't too busy staring at his reflection to see ya'?"  
Like Steve hanging onto the edge of his chair in the furthest corner of the room, Strongarm kept a careful circle around Filch as she took a seat next to Wheeljack. Thunderhoof hadn't followed her in, so she was happy to assume he was off snoozing somewhere as she slumped down. "Fittingly, it turns out he knocked Airachnid up, and he won't tell us any more unless he gets to look at Fixit like he's some kind of freakshow."

Just as well Wheeljack hadn't been leaning back in his chair, else he would have tipped back and fallen on top of Filch from how he suddenly flailed trying to get his backstrut straight, blinking like he had rust in his optics. Steve actually did fall off his chair, but at least he only ended up hurting himself.

"Wait, wait, backtrack a klick, Knockout had a _kid_ with her?"  
"Trust me, I was just as shocked as you," Strongarm said.  
"Well, it's not _shockin'_ , it's just... never mind." Wheeljack shook his helm and slumped back, looking off somewhere in the distance. "I guess _any_ 'Con would get with her, given the chance..."

Strongarm tried to ignore his wistful tone with nothing more than a roll of her optics. "Do you think we can trust him, Dad?"  
Wheeljack's scoffing laugh answered her before she even finished the question. "Trust? Pit no. Even if he's gone this long as an Autobot, it won't take much to drag him right back over to the Cons. I bet seein' Bambi even gave him some ideas. But... he's also the kind who likes showin' off. Even if he had somethin' for Airachnid, the only bot he's ever loved is himself. So if you give him what he wants, he's bound to repay you."

Strongarm certainly got that impression, at least. And if Knockout was telling the truth, he'd have no reason to lie to them.

"Uh... d'you think he could he re-attach my servo?" Steve cut in, waving the useless limb with his other arm to get her attention. "I don't really trust Filch not to steal it while I'm recharging..."  
"I guess so, if we ask him nicely," Strongarm said past a smile, while the Corvicon squawked around the steel in her beak. "He might even recognise you."

Steve let his broken servo dangle again as his visor dimmed. "Oh Primus, I hope not..."

"Well, sounds like you've had a big day, darlin'," Wheeljack said as he tried to make himself more comfortable with the knowledge of Knockout and Airachnid's spawn running around somewhere. "How 'bout you go refuel and rest for a while? Airachnid'll still be out there waitin' when you wake up."

With nothing else to do for the day, Strongarm had to comply. "Aye aye, captain." She gave him a lazy salute as she left, again carefully inching around Filch, and was just outside the room she'd staked out when she stopped to tap her armour.

"Since we have the rest of the day free, why don't we check out that datapad you swiped?"

Fixit's optics lit up as they met hers. _"I'd be happy to."_

Sat on her berth, Strongarm pulled the datapad from her subspace and balanced it in her lap in Fixit's line of sight. Apart from the white case and ports for different monitoring equipment, it seemed the same as any other datapad she'd used. So she was genuinely disappointed when turning it on didn't land her right in the middle of the medic's secrets.

"Password protected. Of course." Strongarm scowled at the log-in screen, as if expecting it to flinch and let her in.

" _No way to hack into it?_ " Fixit asked, dashing Strongarm's faint hope that Life Fibers could penetrate computer security somehow.

"Even if I knew how to, I don't have the tools to do it. Unless… we can guess it?" She tapped at the hint button, squinting at the tiny text as if the password itself was hidden somewhere in it.

' _Hint: The greatest bot I know.'_

Well, that was helpful. Strongarm chewed on her frown before taking a guess.

"'Airachnid'?" It seemed a plausible guess, but the datapad just buzzed violently at her as it cleared the password box. "Nope. But I'm kinda glad about that." Strongarm wasn't sure if she'd want to know what was behind anything guarded by Airachnid's name.

" _What about that femme he was talking to, Firestar?_ " Fixit suggested.

"Pretty sure she was his carrier, Fixit," Strongarm pointed out after a loud snort. "And he doesn't look like the type to use his mother's name as a password. Still, might be worth a-" She didn't even get to finish the speculation before it came up as incorrect. "Wrong again." Strongarm tightened her grip on the datapad, almost cracking the screen with her tense digits. "And you usually only get three tries on these things before they lock you out…"

" _Who else do we know that Knockout cares about?_ " Fixit asked, though he must have known Strongarm was unlikely to know any more than he did. She squinted at the screen, glaring at her faint reflection, trying to dissect her meeting with Knockout in pursuit of any more clues. But it was only when she moved on from Knockout himself that she had her realisation.

"You remember what Wheeljack said about him? 'The only bot he's ever loved is himself'?" Strongarm was willing to risk her last guess on the medic's own name. Though the log-in process seemed to take an age in loading, she was greeted with a homepage that reflected her wide grin. "Bingo." She would have high-fived Fixit if he had hands available, but she settled for patting under his optics as her chest swelled with pride.

Though she'd managed to get past the security, it seemed Knockout didn't have much to hide. The home screen was littered with links to folders and documents, some grouped together into case files or appointments.

"Looks like it's a bunch of patient files," Strongarm said under a sigh of disappointment. Fixit scanned the screen more closely, reading out names that he seemed to recognise.

" _Swindle, Skywarp, Thunderblast, Dragstrip- holy scrap, he really_ was _Megatron's personal medic!"_ Strongarm spied Megatron's own file just as he did, but it was too old to be of any interest to her.

"Nothing about Life Fibers, though," she pointed out, which made the thing about as useful as a steel sword against a leaking Sharkticon.

" _He's probably buried them somewhere_ ," Fixit assured. _"I'm sure if we dig around we could find something."_

Strongarm wasn't feeling hopeful, but there'd be no harm in trying. "If you say so." She tapped through the many profiles, chronicles of broken joints and short-circuits and backfiring thrusters not getting her any closer to something worthwhile. Aside from Dragstrip's file being completely locked off, there was nothing to see. Not even Megatron's check-up reports were interesting enough. She got desperate enough to delve into the datapad's core system files, scouring every folder for anything to go on- until she finally stumbled on something she shouldn't have. That what she assumed the second password screen was for.

"Another one?" Again she tapped for a hint, repeating this one under her vents as she read it. "The greatest bot I _knew_... past-tense this time. It won't be the same as the last one." She looked at it for a few nanoklicks, creasing her eyeridges, before sighing and putting the pad aside.

" _You're not going to try and crack it?"_ Fixit asked.

"I think we've done enough work for one day," Strongarm said. "You go find somewhere to rest. Whatever Knockout's hiding, we'll just find it out tomorrow."

Fixit tightened around her, either at the prospect of being a test subject for Knockout or at leaving her by herself. " _Are you sure?"_

"Yeah, I need a shower anyway. And I doubt there's any more Cons hidden in the ship's walls."

Even with her insistence it took another hard tug on where he hugged her chest before he complied and slid off, leaving her naked but free as he made for the door. Though they'd been fused for the past few days, it was still so surreal seeing him revert back to the form she'd always seen him in, even if it had a new white paint job.

"I'll see you around then," he said over his shoulder, though he seemed determined not to look back at her. Was he of all bots really so embarrassed to see her naked? Strongarm allowed herself a chuckle as she left the datapad on her berth and made for her washrack.

It was only when the rush of cleanser hit her protoform that she realised how much of it was aching, dull throbs in her cables under the mottle of grey bruises over her skin. Either having Fixit fastened around her had muted the pain, or the excitement of planet hopping had made her not notice it until now. The latter had happened when she first became a cadet, with the high of her Academy graduation covering up the plasma burn that grazed her side on her first patrol. She still had the scar to remind her not to get so over-excited.

From Cybertron, to Earth, to Velocitron and beyond. She hadn't even had her badge for a stellar cycle yet and she'd gathered more light years than some senior officers. Bumblebee still held the record with his residency on the Ark though, and she wasn't eager on breaking it. But Primus, or Unicron, only knew when and where they'd stumble across Airachnid. And what the Pit they'd do to capture her… and her runaway kid, whoever or wherever they were.

Strongarm shook her helm with a steam-laden sigh, splattering the cubicle walls. She had plenty of time to worry about that, on top of everything else. And with the soothing stream about to send her to sleep, she shut it off and stepped out into the vent of warm air that blasted her protoform dry. As expected, Wheeljack had stocked her storage compartments with spare armour (and a note reading "As nice as Fixit seems, please please _please_ consider wearing these instead") and she was pulling the plates on when she noticed something sitting on her berth that hadn't been there before. A cube of energon. Someone must have came in while she was washing and left it there. She would have suspected Fixit If he wasn't so worried about invading her privacy. Dressing herself as she made for her door, she caught the intruder just before he headed around the corner at the bottom of the corridor.

"Thunderhoof?"  
He swung his horns around as he faced her, and she had to wonder how he didn't drag entire walls down with them. He looked at the energon she held up with a shrug. "My tanks are still burstin' from that crystalgon," he confessed. "Thought you'd 'preciate some extra fuel since I ain't got use for it." Generosity was something Strongarm had never thought fit with a crime lord, along with many other things that had her doubting what she knew about Thunderhoof... and why he was still with them.

"Well… thanks, I guess." Thunderhoof shrugged again at her, about to turn on his ped before she gathered her all suspicions to her vocaliser. "Before you go… I have a question for you."

"Ask away, babe," Thunderhoof said, with a smirk that told Strongarm reminding him of what her name actually was wouldn't make him want to use it instead.

"You've had countless opportunities now to betray us, rejoin with Cons, or to just find another ship. So what's kept you with us up until now?"

Thunderhoof scanned the floor, rubbed at his neck and, despite the strength it must have taken with those horns, shrugged once again. Maybe words just didn't serve him well. "Guess I'm just curious," he said. "And I know one way or another I'll end up back on Cybertron anyway."

Strongarm scoffed. "Yeah. In a jail cell."

Thunderhoof closed some of the distance between them, letting his smirk take on a more sinister glint. "You keep tellin' yourself that, babe. But you'll need a pretty damn thick cell to keep me in." She wasn't quite sure what to make of the wink he threw at her, so she just kept scowling at his back until she could retreat back into her room with the welcome distraction waiting on her berth.

 **xx**

Chop Shop could think of worse company than Kickback. At least he wasn't Twirl. At least he wasn't as much of a mindless drone as most Insecticons. At least he didn't take much fuel for that pathetically thin frame. But where his new partner was concerned there was still one thing to complain about.

"Kickback, for the last time, will you stopfiddlin' with that stupid human toy!"

Kickback had the patched and stuffed horse clutched in his forelegs while his main ones sat planted on his hips. "Her name is Ladybug, and she's _not_ stupid!" That's what he'd been insisting ever since he'd dug up the hideous thing from a junk pile they'd been scavenging through. "Anyway, I don't tell _you_ to stop fiddling with your comm unit..."

Chop Shop growled, smacking the side of his helm that housed the useless unit again. "Because _I_ ' _m_ tryin' to do somethin' important." He shoveled through another heap of scrap, sifting for anything even remotely interesting and half-hoping something he threw over his shoulder would end up hitting Kickback.

But his prayers failed, with the Insecticon scoffing and skittering further away from the rain of junk. "Pff, like what, finding some fitting music while you try and turn Earth into the next Junkion?"  
Chop Shop growled over the impatient chitters of his servos. "Try 'getting us off this fragging dirt ball', ya' cheeky little…" That was the main mission, regardless of whether Twirl was with him or not. He could always just say she died and Airachnid wouldn't care enough to check.

"I don't mind Earth that much, actually," Kickback mused, hugging Ladybug closer. "All the soil and rocks, it reminds me of the hive I grew up in."  
Chop Shop huffed as the soil clouded his optics and the rocks dented his digits. "In that case, I can just leave you behind then-"

"Hey, hey, I didn't mean it like that!" Kickback reached out to Chop Shop's nearest servo as it twitched its legs poking out of the shoulders, then sighed. "I wanna get home as much as you do. So what even _is_ this grand escape plan of yours?"  
Chop Shop flashed a grin, knowing he had the upper hand (or several, if all his Minicon's servos counted). "Well, since my _boss_ isn't offering any transport, it seems our easiest option is to get the Alchemor up and runnin'. Which is why we're lookin' for parts." A task that he promptly returned to, turning away from Kickback and not seeing the Insecticon tilt his helm as he wavered his antennae in the air.

"...And you call your boss 'Mum'?" he asked, freezing Chop Shop in place, kneeling in the scrap for a long moment before he managed to recover and push himself upright.

"Nothin' wrong with workin' in the family business," he said, restless Minicons giving away the depth of his defensiveness.

"I never said there was anything wrong with it," Kickback said meekly. "I mean, I used to work with my brothers in the Decepticons; Shrapnel and... Hardshell." His antennae wilted and his servos went limp. "He... actually died on Earth, working for Megatron."

Though Chop Shop was still trying to settle the static in his comm unit, his audios picked up the warlord's name clear enough. " _You_ worked for Megatron?"

Kickback nervously clawed the back of his neck as the spider mech and his many Minicons stared at him. "Well, my brothers were a lot older than me, so I mostly got dragged along, and... left behind when Megatron moved on to here. All I really did was help build the hives on Cybertron."

Chop Shop suspected as much; it would be far too fortunate to have an original 'Con officer on his team, even one as sheepish as Kickback. "Hmph. My carrier was one of his officers on Earth." He left it at that, hearing the wires sparking together in Kickback's processor just before a sweet stutter of shock.

"You mean... _Airachnid_?" He said her name like it was a curse, like Unicron would rise up under their peds if he spoke it too loud. Which was exactly the effect Chop Shop's mother liked to have on bots.

"The very same." He continued his charade of casualness as Kickback scraped his legs together and and hopped around with nervous bursts of laughter, clutching Ladybug to his chest.

"Pit, if the other Cons knew what kind of support you had... they'd all be down at your peds in a klick!" he said, practically chirping with excitement.

Chop Shop shrugged, trudging up to his partner. "Probably. But I ain't about to tell everything with a spark that when everyone still thinks she's dead. And I won't have anyone _else_ spreadin' rumours." If his snarl wasn't enough of a warning so close to Kickback's face, his Minicon's chipping in with their own grumbles set the appropriate tone to send the Insecticon into a shaking fear.

"...Got it," he gulped, hiding Ladybug safely under his abdomen. "B-But, can I ask... is it true she can... control Insecticons?"

"Might be. You wanna find out?" Kickback was smart enough to take the hint to get back to work, while Chop Shop not-so-happily went back to adjusting his infernal comm unit and resisting the urge to tear it out. An urge that disappeared when he finally stumbled upon something that wasn't human nonsense or ancient numbers stations.

"I recognise that slagger snarl anywhere..." For all Steeljaw liked to strut and preen and boast before he got shoved into a stasis pod, he had no idea how to secure his comm channel. Chop Shop made sure his unit was set to receiving only before seating himself on a barrel and eavesdropping with ease.

" _So, what's the big idea for getting off Earth?"_ Twirl's time on the planet hadn't made her any less painful to listen to, especially with that tone she liked to use around Airachnid with the impression that sounding like an overcharged drone would somehow earn her a promotion.

At least Steeljaw was quick enough to answer, in that greasy growl of his. _"Well... we were thinking_ you _could maybe come up with a good way and we'd... help you."_

 _"You're leaving_ me _to do all the thinking work?!"_

 _"Well, you_ are _so intelligent, it would be a shame to let that processor go to waste..."_ Chop Shop almost keeled over snorting with laughter, and his frame rippled with mirth as his Minicons snickered at the blatant lie that Twirl soaked up like fine energon.

 _"Aw, well, I guess so..."_ There was a pause as a miracle happened, and she actually thoughtabout something. _"Maybe we could... kidnap another Autobot and build a ship outta them! Wait, no, no, mistress said that takes a lot of clean up afterwards... I know! That prison ship that mistress made crash, it just needs to be fixed!"_

Leave it to her to steal his ideas when they weren't even within audio Shop would have felt miffed if not for Steeljaw's clearly condescending answer.

 _"Very good, Twirl! Tell you what, you go rest after such a good idea, and we'll get started!"_

 _"Yay! Mistress'll be so proud of me...!"_ To Chop Shop's relief, she faded into the distance as another mech's voice chipped in.

 _"We're not_ really _going to help her, are we?"  
"Not a chance," _Steeljaw scoffed. _"But she won't realise that for a long while yet. As long as we keep her busy, we can find out a way to contact Airachnid ourselves."_

Chop Shop turned a pipe in his digits as he smirked, clicking his comm unit off for now. "Well played, wolfie. But you've got as much a chance at talkin' to her than I do at finding the bloody Matrix." He switched off his unit for now and stood up to look for his partner. "Heads up, Kickback; we've got competition for the Alchemor, so we better speed up- "

Chop Shop spotted Kickback nearby, definitely not doing the work he was supposed to be doing. With Ladybug in one servo and a scavenged brush in the other he was so focused on combing the stuffed toy's mane that he didn't even notice Chop Shop looming over him until he knelt down to snatch the brush out of his digits.

"Does this look like an engine part to you?" Chop Shop asked slowly, dangling it by the handle in front of Kickback. The Insecticon's optics flicked from brush to scowl, servos curling protectively around Ladybug.

"…Depends on what kind of engine it is?" That was the wrong answer, which Kickback realised when he suddenly found himself sprawled on the ground with a brush-shaped dent in his helm.


	23. I Didn't Come For A Science Lesson

At some point in vainly searching through the datapad's meticulously-kept medical files, half in a language she wasn't sure she could even understand (which had her uncomfortably empathising with Thunderhoof), Strongarm fell asleep. She woke up with the screen stuck to her face, and her covers tangled all around her. Though even with her cluttered berth it was only the creaking complaint of her empty tanks that got her up from it. Making her way through the ship's halls, she was more surprised than relieved to find the Riotjack still in one piece with Filch flying loose around it. She was half-expecting the Con to come flying at her around every corner, but she reached the command-room-turned-ration-room unharmed with Wheeljack and Steve already up and walking- if not entirely awake just yet. At least Wheeljack perked up when she walked in, just stopping his face from dipping into his energon cube.

"I ionised it a lil' for you, sweetspark," he said as he handed over a fresh cube to her.

"Thanks, Dad." Strongarm gulped and let the warm buzz fill her tanks while Steve built a tower out of empty cubes he'd apparently been saving. Then he knocked it over with a stray swat of his broken servo, mourning his lost effort while Wheeljack finished off his own breakfast.

"So, off to see Shockwave's long-lost apprentice again?" he asked. Though it took Strongarm a nanoklick to realise he was talking about Knockout, with what she'd heard of the infamous Shockwave she didn't quite disagree with the comparison.

"Not like I have a choice," she huffed, throwing her empty cube aside towards where Steve was sitting. He toppled out of his chair trying to catch it, hitting the floor with a thud just as Fixit's wheels jolted along it. He was so small compared to the rest of the ship he could have zoomed inside the room like a mech on red energon and no one would have noticed.

"Morning, ma... I mean, Strongarm." Fixit shook his helm, still not quite out of his habit of politeness. Though from how his wheels still scuffed like racing tires on the unmoving floor, Strongarm suspected it was more likely his fizzling nerves showing through.

"You still sure you're okay about seeing Knockout?" she asked, handing a cube down to him.

"Whether or not I am, we still need to find out what he knows," he said with a shrug, pulling himself up onto an empty seat near the array of ship controls as he cupped his ration. "Even _I_ don't know much more than I've already said about fighters-zzt-filings-zzt-Fibers! I mean..." He tried to drown his frazzling vocaliser with a gulp of energon, hiding a blush behind the cube. Strongarm didn't want to make the poor guy feel worse by laughing.

"Well, as soon as our bodyguard decides to wake up, we can get it all over with," she said. As if he'd been eavesdropping and waiting for the perfect chance to arrive (which wouldn't have surprised her), Thunderhoof then walked in- or more accurately, he sagged in with Filch perched on his antlers.

"I, uh... think she's attracted to me..." Thunderhoof snatched up the last cube before Filch could snap it up from the table, taking a seat sheepishly near Steve as the drone tried to rebuild his tower.

"I've heard of mechs being 'chick' magnets, but I ain't never seen it so literally." Wheeljack snorted through scoffs of laughter, and Thunderhoof scowled across at him just long enough that he didn't notice Filch pecking his cube up until he went to take a drink from his empty hand. That finally convinced him to shove her off his helm even as she squawked in protest.

It was a good start to the day, in Strongarm's opinion. Outside the alien sun hammered down on the asphalt rivers and desert veldts, mixing mirages in the dust clouds that kicked up behind bands of roving Velocitronians. In another time, she might have been able to appreciate the sandscapes more, but for now all she was focused on was getting back to Degapex.

Steve at least expressed enough awe for both herself and Thunderhoof along the way, with Fixit having to drift behind to make sure he didn't spend too long gawking at the highway forests. It took twice as long to reach Knockout's workplace, but Strongarm didn't mind the delay much. At least it gave time for Fixit to get over his nerves... and for her to soothe her own. Every lead she got was one step closer to Airachnid, for better or worse.

Conveniently, Knockout was in the reception room when they finally entered the med center, scolding a group of bots who only came in to escape the heat outside.

"This isn't a rest stop, for Primus' sake, so unless you've got your armour melting off your protoform-!" He stopped and turned once Thunderhoof was close enough to make the floor shake with his peds, still wielding a saw blade at the wide-eyed younglings in front of him as he smiled at Strongarm.

"Ah, Strongarm, Fixit. Lovely to see you again, especially separated for once. And your... endowed friend." His cordial grin lost some of its luster when it fell on Thunderhoof's growling scowl.

"Bite me, traitor."

Whatever Knockout was going to dismiss the insult with was lost when he noticed Steve finally catching up to them. "I suppose this is the Vehicon who lead you here? I haven't seen one of _you_ around for a long while."

Even with his visor down, it was clear Steve was just as surprised as Knockout at seeing the other mech. "I've been... sleeping," he said.

Whether he was curious or suspicious at Steve's presence, Knockout seemed amused at his answer. "With everything that's happened, I wouldn't blame you..." He beckoned the group of four to follow him to the hoverpads, with the same receptionist from yesterday still eyeing Thunderhoof like he had the cybonic plague. The pad was cramped, with Strongarm almost wishing she was wearing Fixit so he didn't need to squeeze between her and Steve, but Knockout soon enough lead them once again to his office.

"I'm afraid your friends must wait outside," the medic said. "Can't have just _anyone_ getting in on our little secret…" Thunderhoof wasn't any happier about being abandoned than he was yesterday, but Steve made no complaint. Even so, Strongarm didn't think it fair that the mech who got them here would be left outside.

"The Vehicon should at least be allowed in," she argued. "He's the one who was around Airachnid on the moon, after all."

Knockout gave Steve a narrow look, before rolling his optics. "Very well, but only because I don't expect him to remember much of this." Steve didn't look at all honoured by being allowed in, but with Strongarm following behind he couldn't run away now. Thunderhoof now had all the more reason to be pissed, knowing a drone was allowed were he wasn't, but he just sulked beside the door as it closed. After all, it wasn't like a door could keep the likes of Thunderhoof out if he really wanted in.

"Right, down to business." Knockout shrouded the room in darkness again with curtains, but this time the screen behind his desk let out a dim red glow that fell on both Strongarm and Steve's faces, while Fixit was left on the floor and in the dark.

"If your Minicon would be so kind as to place himself on the table..." Knockout gestured to a surgical slab that hadn't been in the middle of the room before, and though Fixit complied he still fiddled with his drill while Knockout tapped something into the keyboard at his desk. A cone of sheer blue light shimmered over Fixit, a humming came from under the table, and it soon dimmed to a faint overlay that covered every inch of his shaking frame.

"It shouldn't take too long to scan, but until then..." Knockout seated himself comfortably, spread across his chair with a leg dangling over a servorest. "Why don't you tell me how much you already know about Life Fibers?"

Strongarm tried to not glance back at Fixit as she leaned against the sofa opposite the medic, next to Steve who hurriedly seated himself. "Just that they're some kind of cosmic parasite. They attach themselves to a host as... armour, or something, and suck your energon out," she said, remembering more from experience than what Fixit told her.

Knockout's optics glimmered under a quirked eyeridge, almost impressed. "That's the basics, at least. I myself didn't even know they existed until..." He shook his helm, rubbing his digits together as he rearranged himself so he was facing her. "Well, a deal's a deal. Let me start from the beginning of what I know," he said, tenting his digits. "Life Fibers have always been around. They're an ancient species, older than even Primus himself. In their early stages, they were harmless, only feeding off cosmic radiation and waste matter from newborn galaxies. They couldn't properly evolve until organic life first appeared, some millennia after mechanical life like us. But when they did... they became dangerous. They learned that they could get far more energy by stealing it from living beings rather than absorbing it themselves."

Still leaning in his chair, he sent up a display to the screen behind him; a tangled web of glowing red strings that seemed to spiral out of the glass and choke the darkness out of the room. Steve reached out his working servo as if he could grab onto the threads.

"Every molecule in a single Life Fiber was designed to leech as much as possible from the host," Knockout went on as the display morphed, showing the strings spreading out and swelling up before unravelling and dying back in a continual cycle. "Until they found they were draining them far too quickly, and they were running out of food. So they changed tactics; rather than completely devote themselves to draining others, they'd make themselves help their host, give it certain advantages over other beings. Keep it alive long enough for it to breed, to create more hosts that could fuel more Fibers... a symbiotic relationship. As shown here, with Fixit's own Fibers."

Knowing she was looking at Fixit's own body suddenly made Strongarm much less willing to look at the swimming strings on the screen, and there was a gulp of shock behind her from Fixit himself. "And Solus Prime wanted to make _armour_ out of them?" she asked, trying to shove down a wave of nausea.

"Because of _how_ they kept their host alive." Knockout started pacing, thankfully pulling the display off before Steve toppled out of his chair trying to reach towards it. "They didn't attach themselves directly to their bodies, they _covered_ them. Just like armour. You know this already, Strongarm; if you can survive the strain they put on your body... they reward you very handsomely."

Steve had kept mostly to himself through the lecture, but the armour around his mask was slick with coolant as he muttered. "Explains a lot about the armour Airachnid was wearing..."

"Where do the Minicons come in, then?" Fixit piped up as Knockout approached him, plunging a needle so quickly into his servo that it was already full of energon when the Minicon yelped in pain.

"At first Solus was happy to create armour sets purely from Life Fibers, but no-one could actually wear them and survive the energon drain." Knockout didn't miss a beat as he squinted at the syringe, swirling the red-tinged fluid inside it. "The Fibers couldn't help gorging themselves on the huge amounts of energy in their host's energon and sparks. So she had a theory that she put forth to Micronus. If she could somehow _infuse_ his Minicons with Life Fibers, then the Fibers would have no choice but to keep their Minicon, and in turn themselves, alive. They stay in a dormant state this way, and only activate when their Minicon finds a larger bot to wear them. Interestingly, they work best with femmes like you, Strongarm, since you have greater energy stores in your spark." He placed the syringe's vial inside a centrifuge while he spoke, letting it spin away while Fixit gingerly rubbed at his pricked servo.

"Why would Micronus agree to something like that?" he asked, but Strongarm was getting impatient twisted herself around to face the medic.

"I have a better question; just how do _you_ know all this?" She stretched out a servo so she could point at Knockout. The medic stared down the bulky digits, but not defiantly. To Strongarm, he looked like he was suddenly very far away from his office.

"If you really must know, it's all thanks to my sire, Straxus." He dragged himself back behind his desk with a heavy helm. "He spent the better half of his life studying the Fibers. The Quintessons studied them as well, eons before our times, and they left behind their notes in some old archives that he managed to come across. I'm not sure what my sire was planning on doing with them, or what he was hoping to find, but I dug up his research one day on his databank. Could you believe he put my name as the password to it?" Strongarm coughed to cover up a laugh at how ironic that was, but she almost choked on it when Knockout came close and shoved another needle into her own servo.

"Ow! What the Pit!" She snatched her arm back as soon as Knockout was done siphoning energon, cradling it to her chest.

"Don't whine, dear, it's barely a scratch," the medic scolded, transferring the energon to its own vial. "Anyway, he's been missing ever since the war ended, but... if he's alive, he'll be wherever there are Fibers." He turned a strangely intense gaze on Strongarm. "Which means he's likely working with Airachnid. On something very, very big."

"So you _do_ believe she's out there," Strongarm said, still rubbing at the tiny wound in her servo,

Knockout made a sound of reluctant agreement. "As much I've tried to ignore them, there have been... signs of her return all over the galaxy."

"Like what?"

"Increased reports of Insecticon attacks, unrest among our more organically inclined relatives, just to name a few. When you've spent as much time as I have working with her, you never quite forget the hallmarks of her influence." He flashed another sad smile full of regrets, one that must have been habitual whenever he thought of her. "Coupled with the rumours of... tiny Cybertronians that can fuse into weaponry, well, it's obvious enough she's managed to harness the power of Life Fibers somehow. And if Airachnid has a Kamuicon of her own... well, I'm sure _you_ would know how dangerous it would make her, dear."

As if she wasn't dangerous enough already... Strongarm felt her features twist more from confusion than distress. "She sent someone to seize Fixit on Earth, but he just ended up bonding with me instead. Why would she want another if she already has one?"

Knockout could only shrug and muse in response. "Perhaps she just wants to eliminate the competition. Or, knowing her, she's intent on starting a collection of the poor things. Whatever she's actually planning, you won't know until you find her. Or another one of her lackeys, at least. They shouldn't be too hard to find as long as you follow the clues." There was a rapid beep as the centrifuge slowed down, and Knockout busied himself with removing the vial while Steve tugged on her attention.

"Do you think he's telling the truth? That Airachnid has Minicons working for her?" he asked in a hush.

"At this rate, I'm willing to believe anything," she whispered back. "It's not like he has a reason to lie to us, anyway."

All Steve offered was a mumbled protest. "Well, he wasn't really known for honesty on Earth..."

Strongarm glanced behind her, almost expecting Knockout to have Fixit cut up like a lab rat, but all she saw was the medic peering at the energon vial, now filled with a clear fluid and tiny flicks of red floating on top of it. "The Fibers are _in_ the energon... interesting." He shook it once before slipping it aside, brushing his hands off each other. "Well, that's just about everything I need. And all I have to say."

Strongarm blinked, and even Fixit was too surprised to jump off the table immediately. "That's it?" she asked. "All you need is a scan and some energon?"  
"Would you rather I vivisect him?" he deadpanned, both eyeridges lying flat over his optics.  
"Whatever that means... no thanks." Strongarm picked herself up and walked towards Fixit, helping him step down from the table while Knockout's back was turned. Though Steve was already at the door, just waiting for the chance to open it, she wasn't quite ready to leave. "Wait a klick, you said you could help me synchronise with Fixit as well," she said.

Knockout looked over his shoulder, a smirk shining bright through the gloom. "I did say that but, as I recall, you weren't interested," he pointed out.

"What?"

"A deal is a deal, but it's only as good as the day it's made." As far as Strongarm was concerned that translated to "tough slag", which also translated to her fist hitting someone's smug face.

"You sneaky son of a-!"

Knockout must have anticipated her anger from how quickly he dodged her attempt to grab him, leaving her with a fistful of empty air.

"Alright, alright, relax!" he drawled, like dealing with a sparkling or a troublesome pet turbofox. "I see Autobot humour hasn't improved since the war… just give me a klick to compare your energon readings." Conscious of Strongarm trying to look over his shoulder, Knockout leant in close to his work as he stared down a microscope. "It's hard to made any conclusions with just one sample, but it seems your energon has mixed with Fixit's. The Life Fibers know they can't use his fuel without dying, so they let yours diffuse in the fuel lines before absorbing it."

"That's all fine and good, but how does that help me not faint after five klicks?" Strongarm pressed. Knockout shot her a look as he straightened.

"The problem is that the Fibers take more energon than you can provide," he said. "They're not in synch with your spark, so they just take whatever they get without thinking of keeping you up and running. It seems the key to getting that synch is either forcing them to co-operate with you, or _you_ co-operating with them."

Strongarm scoffed. "Isn't getting half-naked _co-operating_ enough?"

" _Not if you're letting yourself be embarrassed by it,"_ Fixit reminded her. " _If you care too much about what other bots think, you can't focus on the fight. It's only when you forget about them that everything works properly."_

Knockout smiled like an insufferable know-it-all being proven right. "There you have it. If you want to use him to his full potential, listen to your Kamuicon. Trust him, if you can. He knows how to help you, but only if you'll let him. And don't feel self-conscious when you fight. I'm sure you have a _lovely_ body under there." Even if she was wearing proper armour this time, Strongarm didn't appreciate the gesture around her chestplates.

"Not like _you'll_ ever get to see it," she muttered.

Knockout only spared her a wink before returning to his lab station. "We'll see about that."

Before she could retort, out of the corner of her optics she saw a flash of purple as Steve somehow managed to dislocate his shoulder with the limb literally hanging off by its wires.

"Oh yeah, he could use some help with his servo," she remembered. When she reached for it the whole thing ended up slipping out of its socket, hanging limp from her hand. Steve didn't seem as offended as he should have been, and Knockout certainly didn't look phased.

"I suppose these samples are worth a free limb re-connection," he said. "Last time I had to do one of those was for Megatron, of all mechs. It'll take a few breems to have the wires fixed so just trust me to send him back all in one piece."

Once Steve retrieved his arm and took Fixit's place on the surgical table, Knockout already had some terrifying tools ready for whatever nightmarish procedure was about to take place. Which was just another reason Strongarm was eager to leave while Fixit was already at the door, only hanging back because of something new leaping into Knockout's optics.

"Before you go, there's one other thing you should know about Airachnid," he said. "She's techno-organic. That means the Life Fibers will treat her as both mechanical _and_ biological. Theoretically, if my sire's notes are correct, the Fibers won't draw all their energy from energon and spark, and Primus knows what else might happen. Even with synchronisation she could last much longer than you in a fair fight."

"And knowing her, she won't be fighting fair anyway," Strongarm grimly reasoned.

"Count yourself lucky Fibers aren't smart enough to take sides," Knockout told her, casting a stray glance at the vial he set aside as Steve fell into a controlled stasis. That would have been the cue to take a quiet exit, or at least Fixit thought so with how he tried to slowly slide away, but Strongarm felt like something was missing. Something in the regret that the medic tried to hide whenever Airachnid was mentioned.

"Knockout... if she's got your sparkling-"

"That's not for you to worry about," he quickly interrupted. "Just find her, and do what you must." It was a stern tone, only softened by the grateful smile he levelled at her. "Besides, I have another two driving me crazy as it is. Sunstreaker likes to run up the credit bill on body mods, and don't even get me started on the times I've had to get Sideswipe out of prison..." He trailed off with a sigh as he went back to sorting through his razor tools, but he could have been pole dancing for all Strongarm was paying attention to him, blinking rapidly as she tried to diagnose what was wrong with her audios.

"...Did you say _Sideswipe_?" she asked, a little too quietly for him to hear properly.

"Hm?"  
Fixit tugging insistently on her servo combined with a surge of common sense made her change her tune. "Nothing, nothing..." The door closed behind her before she could consider diving back in for answers- but she could always interrogate Sideswipe later. Still, the shock numbed her enough that she almost tripped over Thunderhoof as he knelt with an audio against the door. Only grabbing for his horns helped keep her balance, which also ended up yanking him upright.

"Took ya' long enough!" he grumbled. "Maybe if ya' didn't spend so long yappin' I wouldn't be rustin' away out here!"

"Were you listening in on that?" Strongarm asked, mirroring his indignant stance with servos on hips.

Thunderhoof shrugged blamelessly. "Not like I had anythin' else to do. Ain't Sideswipe that other wimp on Earth?" If she wasn't still kinda mad at Sides she might have slapped the insult out of the Decepticon's vocaliser.

"The same wimp that tricked you into thinking he was another Con, yeah," she quipped, though the smugness was fleeting when she noticed how pale Fixit still looked against the stark white tiles.

"You okay, Fixit?"  
"Just a... l-little woozy... I don't do well with needles..." He was shaking too much to even move his wheels forwards, almost rubbing the paint off his servo from how hard he stroked at it.

"Just fuse yourself on me again," Strongarm suggested, kneeling down so he could lean on her. "I'll walk for both of us." He didn't need to say thank you when she could feel the gratitude in his nodes as they melded with her own in a flash of light, muted slightly by the shining surroundings but still leaving Thunderhoof temporarily blinded.

"I swear, I ain't ever gonna get used to that..." He shook his helm with a groan as they rounded the corner, running right into another duo coming the opposite way.

"Sorry, I-!" Strongarm already had the apology ready, but even if she didn't recognise the femme in front of her she would have been left speechless. She'd only seen Firestar from the back, the plume of flame from her helm trailing behind her. From the front her whole face was bathed in amber firelight, almost cancelling out the blue of her optics and shock sparkling in them as they glazed over Strongarm's, so similar to how Knockout reacted to the armour blinking up at him. Even without that comparison, it was obvious she was related to him. The red mech beside her could have been his brother as well, but he didn't face Thunderhoof's shadow with nearly as much confidence.

"Darling, you have some... exceptional armour," Firestar said, obviously not noting the irony as the femme with literal fire spouting out her helm. "Where did you get it?"

Even if it was just innocent curiosity, Strongarm couldn't stop her guard shooting up. "It… was a gift," she said, maybe a little too urgently with how tightly Fixit was clutching her. "Custom made. I'm afraid I don't know the designer."

Firestar hummed, digits stroking at the ridge of her chin as she eyed the wide blue lapels holding Fixit's frozen optics. "A shame... still, that will make me feel much less guilty about stealing the look for myself." She let out a laugh that must have been practiced to sound so self-indulgent and elegant at the same time.

Beside her, the mech was staring off over Strongarm's shoulder, trying to get away from Thunderhoof's glare. "Oh, were you visiting Knockout?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah-"  
"Well, he's done a real good job on that face!" he praised, pointing right between Strongarm's optics before cautiously drifting his digit over to Thunderhoof. "Though your friend might like to get some work done..."

As if expecting he was about to be trampled or just unhappy at being ignored, Firestar pushed herself back in front of her companion. "Hush, Roddy. Listen, dear, I'm holding a little get-together this evening. Short notice, I know, but there is more than enough room on the guest list for you if you're available..."

She beamed brighter than her fire, but Strongarm still quirked an eyeridge. "What kind of get-together?"

"Oh, just the annual Velocity Vogue show in Talatona," Firestar said with a fan of her digits, as if it was supposed to mean something to Strongarm. "I happen to be in charge of organising it. So, what name for the list?" She snapped her digits at Roddy, and a datapad appeared in the mech's hand a nanoklick later.

"Uh... Strongarm, but I-"

The one thing Life Fibers couldn't do was stop bots interrupting her, it seemed. "Such a unique name, and how fitting." Firestar watched her sparkmate (he must have been so with how she managed to drill orders into him) scribble on the pad before giving another fancy gesture. "Anyway, I'm horribly busy, as I'm sure you can imagine, so I will see you there, darling! And... bring your friend, if you wish." She passed between Strongarm and Thunderhoof, leaving behind shimmering heat across both bot's faces from her thick flame, as well as her hapless husband as he took a nanoklick to eye up Strongarm's armour for himself.

"Uh... know where I can get a set like that for myself?"

Firestar's snappiness stopped Strongarm from having to answer. "Hurry up, Rodimus!" And then the mech was gone just as quickly with only a flashing smirk left behind. Only now did Fixit relax with hissing relief.

"...What the Pit was that about?" Strongarm asked, trying to waft away the lingering warmth in the air, though most of it seemed to be coming from Thunderhoof's frame as he stared after Firestar.

"Strongarm, d'you know what you've just gotten yourself into?" he asked with a hint of a chuckle.

"Something not worth the trouble?" she guessed, only coaxing out the rest of the laugh from him.

"Velocity Vogue is a fashion show," he said. "One'a the most exclusive this side of the galaxy. Just gettin' into the afterparty can bankrupt a bot, and you just scored a front row seat with the girl in charge of it."

Knowing what it was all about didn't leave Strongarm any more enthused about it. "But I hate parties..."

 **xx**

 _I'm using Firestar's MTMTE design here cause as much as I hate that series I actually really love how she looks._


	24. Put Your Red Dress On

Whether or not the poor Quintessons who last occupied the base knew of what lay at the heart of it, Airachnid felt wonderfully lucky having it all to herself. Or maybe that was just the Fibers swarming all over her; a cradle of threads so like the silk she weaved webs from, only so much more dangerous. Once so long ago it was just a single strand, balanced carefully between the pull of the galaxy's spiral arms, slowly fed and cultivated until it spun itself into a bundle; something solid she could walk on and tend to, something to be harvested, stretched into a shimmering red veil of power.

And it was getting bigger with every orbit, every nanoklick as they lanced out from their spindles and swelled with energy, with power Airachnid had been dreaming of for millennia. The control she had over Insecticons, even what she had with her own son paled in what the Life Fibers gave her. They pulled themselves around her, embracing her tightly, draped around her legs, leeching into her protoform and twisting around every wire in her body... it was hard not to become addicted to them, to pull herself out of their needy grasp when she needed to. No wonder Straxus fell so easily to them, especially when they surrounded him every breem, clad themselves to him like a second layer of skin. And Chop Shop... how did the poor boy not go mad with all they gifted him with?

Though, of course, they didn't love either of them like they loved her. They didn't soothe or delight their nodes in quite as much gratitude. They teased them with the power they had locked away, and only let her glimpse at what they could do as they surged around stress melting, all senses muted... except from those circuits in her audios, tingling with Straxus' quiet and convenient summons.

" _My mistress?"_

The Fibers retreated from her mouth as it let out a groan, strands still caressing her neck as she twisted to sigh into her comm unit. "Yes, Straxus, what is it?"

" _I am sorry to interrupt a rare period of relaxation, but we've had a report from Flip Sides."_

She untangled herself from the grasp of the glowing tethers, shaking herself free with slowly flexing cables as her helm perked up. "Our agent on Velocitron?"

" _The very same,"_ Straxus replied. " _She says a rather renowned party is being held in the capital tonight, and our little fugitive happens to be on the guest list."_

"How lucky..." Just with a name, Airachnid hadn't expected to get results quite so quickly. But Velocitron was a big planet... Strongarm must have been especially stupid to think she could hide there. Even the Fibers writhing around her seemed to show amusement. "Instruct Flip Sides to keep up her cover until no longer necessary. She must do whatever necessary to get Strongarm's Kamuicon."

" _So we activate the Trigger?"  
_ "Precisely." She could almost imagine the carnage wrought by such an unassuming agent, feeling the Kamuicon fusing to her nodes. Straxus must have appreciated the image too, as his smirk seeped over the comm line.

" _As you command, mistress... will you be spending much longer out there?"  
_ "Getting lonely, Straxus?" she cooed, sinking back into the bed of Life Fibers as they swelled around her, tugging on her twitching legs.

 _"I prefer the term... unoccupied."_ The mech failed to sound casual about his husky tone, but Airachnid didn't quite mind.

"You're more than welcome to come join me, dear..." Airachnid dragged a claw over the threads beneath her, not managing to slice through them but winding them in a cocoon around her digit.

Straxus' chuckle was almost as poisonous as the glaze over her grinning fangs. " _I just might take you up on that, Airachnid... after I tend to the prisoner."_

She made herself comfortable again, wondering when he'd tire of playing with Windblade and her endless begging. "Take your time. It's not like she's going anywhere."

 **xx**

Wheeljack didn't seem too bothered at being stuck on Velocitron for another day. If anything, he seemed overjoyed at having more time to waste his credits on racing bets (with Thunderhoof only encouraging the bad decisions). Strongarm later found out it was because he was expecting to go with her, along with Steve as he whirled his servo around its new polished joint.

"Dad, if you come then who will be here to guard the ship?" she pointed out, since it was _her_ ship after all.  
"It can look after itself, sweetie!" Wheeljack insisted as he polished the dents in his armour, likely the first time the metal had even been brushed. "Besides, there'll be parkin' space in the capital. We'll just fly over there and let good ol' Velocitron security handle it."

"And you'll happily just let Filch fly around unsupervised?" she asked, knowing it would make him pause.

"...Good point. We'll take her in too."

"No, we will _not_!"

But after some pointless arguing and many groans from Strongarm, they eventually did. Wheeljack somehow found a space among the many cruisers and travel pods cluttering Talatona's harbour, and they all had to crowd themselves into the line spiraling from the city's hall. Half of the bots around them seemed to not even be invited, they just wanted to try sneaking in (even when they've already been kicked out, sporting ridiculous disguises and strips of metal welded onto their faceplates). As a result, the line moved at the pace of a malfunctioning gestalt and Strongarm only managed to occupy herself by whispering down at Fixit.

"What do you think of Firestar?" she asked. "Isn't it a little suspicious how she's interested in you?"

 _"Everyone seems to be interested... maybe she's just curious. She is an armour designer, after all."_

"I suppose..." Strongarm shuffled forwards as a mech with a cone on his head was thrown aside by the bouncer, crashing loudly to the ground in a bulky pile of wings. "How much of what Knockout said is true, Fixit?"

 _"All of it, more or less. I've never really known the specifics of the Fibers, though... all I knew was they took care of me, in return for energon."_ He tightened slightly around her, betraying his hesitancy before he dismissed it. _"It's… a little weird, someone who's not another Minicon knowing so much about me."_

"Yeah, I can't imagine there's many others like you out there," Strongarm said, looking twice at a Minicon trying not to be trampled near the entrance.

" _Not nowadays, at least…"_ Fixit relaxed slightly, loosening his grip on her limbs. _"I was told we used to hide out on Luna 1 with normal Minicons, before the Golden Age. If we heard of a bot who deserved our help, we'd go down to Cybertron and meet them. But after Sentinel Prime came into power, Luna 1 was turned into a research facility and we had to leave. It wasn't until the war happened that any Kamuicon was useful."_

"The war? You'd think someone would have noticed if Optimus was fighting battles in nothing but protoform." Strongarm stifled a giggle that still managed to get her strange looks thrown over shoulders, wondering how much closer the mental image of Primus' herald as an exhibitionist brought her to the Pit.

Fixit didn't share her laughter. He didn't say anything at all. If not for his tight breaths, she would have thought he was offline. "Fixit?"

The Minicon's distant optics cleared as he rapidly blinked, the lapels shaking slightly as if he was just jolted awake. _"Sorry, I… I don't really like thinking about the war. Can we talk about something else?"_

"Sure, no worries." Strongarm fought back her curiosity for the sake of Fixit's comfort. "What about synchronising? Is it really that important that we figure it out?"

" _If you want to do any worthwhile fighting, then yes,_ " Fixit said. _"I don't know how Knockout knew about it, but everything he said made sense. Synching is all about the relationship between the Kamuicon and their host."_

"Huh... I think we have a pretty good relationship, don't we?"

 _"I think so too, ma'am. But... maybe not good enough for the Life Fibers."_

Strongarm sighed, tugging at the tough fabric fanning out around her hips. "As long as they keep me alive, that's good enough for me. I just wish they didn't need to make me look like a stripper..."

 _"The less that's covered, the less energon that's drained away,"_ Fixit explained with an apologetic shrink of his optics. _"They could easily be inch-thick plates all over your frame but... well, you'd collapse in a klick."_

"Good to know," Strongarm muttered.

"You talkin' to your chest again?" Thunderhoof asked beside her, jabbing a digit right at one of the lapels showing Fixit's optics.

"Out of all of us, it makes the best company..." Strongarm flinched away before he could harass Fixit any further, and just before Filch started pecking on his horns. "You're the experienced party-goer here, what should we be expecting?"  
Thunderhoof tried to pry Filch off of himself as he answered. "A lot of bots with more than just their tailpipe up their afts... and high grade. Lots of high grade."

That got Wheeljack's attention as quickly as anything else could, but before he could inquire further the line had finally shifted them all to the front where a masked mech awaited them, looking like he belonged more to guarding a medieval castle than a party.

"Name?" he asked, voice slightly echoed by his grilled faceplate.  
"Strongarm. And these are my... guests." She gestured to the other four gathered around her as the guard looked them all over skeptically.

"Uh... she with you as well?" He pointed over her shoulder to where Filch was trying to jam her claws into her beak for cleaning, only managing to scratch at her face.

"More or less..." That reluctant answer seemed good enough, as one by one they were admitted into the dark interior hallway- until Thunderhoof tried to get past, that is.

"Sir, your additional appendages are both unsightly and incapable of fitting through this entrance. You'll need to go through the cargo doors." Strongarm couldn't see the exchange behind her as she walked on, but she could hear Thunderhoof stamping the ground as he snorted.

"Like Pit I will! I've been lining up for _this_ door, and it's _this_ door I'm goin'-"

"Assault alert! Intentional infraction of personal space protocol!"

"Hey, get your damn hands off me-!"

"Requesting back up, suspect is armed and hideous!"

While Thunderhoof made friends with the bouncer, Strongarm followed the gloomy walls of the corridor into the main hall, immediately hit by a wall of neon heat that shimmered in the soft darkness. Firestar was obviously fond of her namesake; orange and yellow burned in the pinprick lights scattered along the floor, plumes and sparks of flame shot up at regular intervals along the catwalk that stretched along the length of the massive room, even the chairs arranged around it looked like metal molded from magma. The whole display looked like a shrine to fire, and Firestar herself was the crown jewel of it waving from her suite set right above the catwalk.

"Ah, there you are!" The flame-flushed femme beckoned Strongarm as she hesitantly climbed to the balcony, only slightly behind Wheeljack and Steve's eagerness to sit down. "I was almost worried you wouldn't make it in time, dear."

Strongarm took the seat next to her, if only to be polite. "Well, the guard's doing a good job keeping bots out..."

Firestar hummed a dignified laugh behind her hand. "Yes, Afterburner gets quite defensive when you set him to something... that's the benefit of getting a gestalt team as security detail. Though I do hope Computron doesn't make an appearance-" She cut herself off as four mechs below them started running to the exit, chewing her lip in a frown. "Oh, too late..."  
And not a klick later, Thunderhoof came barreling in followed by his own frantic screams, throwing himself down beside Strongarm like he'd just been chased by a Terrorcon.

"Okay, lesson learned, don't piss off Combiners, even if they're askin' for it..." A drinks tray passed behind him and was instantly snatched away as he downed the whole thing to soothe his gasps. Firestar was only more amused by watching him gulp down the cold energon (while Steve somehow managed to shove kernelgon behind his mask).

"Just be glad it takes Computron an eon to move just one servo, else you might not be sitting here," she quipped, nudging Strongarm in her side. "Ironic, isn't it? The speed planet is guarded by the galaxy's slowest gestalt!" Firestar seemed incapable of keeping her laughter below a certain decibel level, one that forced others to join in even if they didn't want to. Beside her, Rodimus didn't seem to need much encouragement as he giggled like the sparkling he surely still was. Wheeljack squinted behind him, looking over his shoulder as if he was expecting his optics to suddenly turn red.

"And who're you supposed to be?" he asked, startling the poor mech and almost making him topple out his seat.

"Rodimus, sir!" He gave a salute that must have been habitual. "Sparkmate of Firestar, Ward of Ultra Magnus."

Wheeljack wasn't squinting anymore, but he looked just as bewildered as Strongarm felt at the mention of her more famous Wrecker uncle. "Magnus?" he asked. "I never knew he had a damn kid! There ain't no femme in the galaxy he wouldn't bore to death before he got her in his berth!"

"Well... a-adopted ward," Rodimus admitted, flushing slightly at the suggestion of his faux sire's berth antics. But Wheeljack's insistence on making everything awkward didn't stop there as he passed a digit between him and Firestar.

"And ain't you a little young to be someone's sparkmate?"

That was something Strongarm had been wondering herself, and she wasn't the only one as everyone turned a questioning stare on Firestar.

"...What can I say? I like young mechs." Firestar shrugged as her husband tried to sink his helm into his chest, sipping from a disturbingly ornate glass of pale gold high-grade. Strongarm was about to help herself to one passed along another tray when a glare from Wheeljack stopped her, just before her sire blinked and stared somewhere past her down at the hall below them.

"Hang on, is that... hey, Jazz!" Wheeljack jumped out of his seat and barged over to the edge of the balcony, waving down at a monochrome blue-visored mech looking up at them with a bright grin.

"Jackie! Who the Pit let you in here?"

"I could ask you the same thing, ya tone deaf fragger!" By now Strongarm was standing beside her father, looking down at Jazz. He didn't look like a Wrecker to her, but it was clear he knew Wheeljack just as well as any of his squadmates. And as soon as Strongarm went near Wheeljack he slung a servo around her neck, pulling her even closer. "Ah, Jazz, meet my daughter Strongarm!"

Jazz pulled his visor down, more like a pair of glowing glasses than part of his helm, to look up at her more clearly. "Knew you two were related as soon as I saw ya', sweetie," he said, still grinning infectiously.

"She might not take that as a compliment," Wheeljack warned, eventually letting Strongarm go as Jazz started moving again.

"Listen, I gotta get to work, but I'll see you during intermission!" Jazz dipped his glasses down again to wink up at Strongarm. "Enjoy the show, sweetspark!"

Strongarm was sure she would, and she gave a curious glance at Wheeljack. "How do you have friends just about everywhere we go, Dad?"

Wheeljack shrugged, seating himself again and leaning back with a wide glass of frothy high-grade. "Pays to be popular, sweetspark."

Around them the dull lights dimmed further and all chatter faded to a low hush. By contrast the spotlights above the catwalk seemed to grow even brighter, and the audience's optics created an eerie glow. Firestar's were especially somber, pointed at the only empty seat near her left in the suite. Strongarm assumed it had been reserved for Knockout, in the vain hope that he would show up. But the show was already starting, as Jazz was only so eager to announce over a low thrum of music from his booth at the head of the stage.

"Welcome, one and all, mechs and femmes and ornate organics, to the highlight of any fashionista's stellar cycle, Velocity Vogue! To those who don't have the pleasure of knowing me, I am Jazz, here to make your evening just that little extra special." The reason why he wore a visor became quickly obvious- he didn't need his optics to be expressive when his whole frame oozed charisma.

"Our first model is the stellar spectacular Proxima! Sporting titanium-gold alloy with Firestar's signature cadmium-copper trim, any femme would make a Seeker crash to the ground while wearing this!" The femme that emerged trailing red-gold sheets of metal behind her either naturally glowed or managed to trick the light of the surrounding fire into billowing around her, and it was no wonder how quickly the room filled with gasps and camera flashes (some so bright that Filch almost went flying after them). Strongarm almost felt tacky in her own armour, no matter how 'unique' it was, especially with Firestar's obvious pride at her work. And every other model after Proxima was just as stunning, owning their stage and bathing in the attention like they were born in the spotlight. With so many other femmes to compete with, it was no wonder Sideswipe let his interest wander from her... all Strongarm could do was resign herself to eavesdropping on the awestricken crowds below.

"Gedächtnis, get me those armour plates!"

"Duchess Drossel, they would not fit you-"  
"Then get me _ten_ of them! I'll weld them together into a big metal cape!"

Though not everyone was so enamored by the strutting sights, which at least gave Strongarm something to smile about.

"Hmph, I wouldn't be caught dead in such crass colours..."

"Why is it that everywhere we go, you find something to complain about, Tracks?"

"If you don't like my commentary, sit somewhere else!"

"Fine, I will!" In the low light it was hard to tell, but the white-blue mech she'd been listening to seemed to vanish completely- to the ire of his red-faced friend.

"Oh, now you're just being childish, Mirage!" He stood up to try and find the invisible mech just as the fourth model retreated behind the drapes and Jazz did what he did best.

"Alright folks, we have reached the end of part one of our dazzling evening, but don't go nowhere! Your favourite MC will return along with all the beauties after the star of our show, the rose of the galaxy, the eternal entertainer, _Rooooosannaaaa_!"

"Primus, he really _does_ get into it..."

Wheeljack laughed at Strongarm's sigh, finishing off his second high-grade glass. "Yeah, he takes some gettin' used to. First time I met him I wanted to knock his optics out his helm- almost managed it, too!"

But before he could launch into a dramatic retelling of the mighty battle, Firestar was tugging Strongarm's attention over with bright ember optics.

"So, Strongarm, tell me what you think of it so far!"

A femme like her trying to give an opinion on fashion was like asking a Sharkiton to sparklingsit. "Um... it's all very... thematic?" she guessed, relieved when Firestar gave her usual cultured laugh in response.  
"Well, you know you can never go wrong with the perfect colour palette." She fanned herself with her digits, confident that she was as good as she always believed, as her sparkmate leapt up and pointed over the balcony.

"There she is!" The announcement was only slightly behind a flurry of cheers that would have told the whole city of Rosanna being there. Strongarm didn't bother standing to see her, not being a fan of high-pitched minipop even on normal occasions, but Fixit's optics were high enough that he could look down at the stage.

" _Uh, Strongarm... don't hate me, but I'm a bit of a Rosanna fan- "_

"We're not going down for a closer look, Fixit. And I'm certainly not getting her autograph- "

" _No, it's not that... her optics aren't supposed to be red._ "

Strongarm froze from the neck down, craning her helm to see the pink Minicon fluttering very long lashes over very red optics, which were very clearly glaring up at her. "Oh boy..."

"I'd like to debut a new song this evening," Rosanna simpered, an unmistakable growl under that constant whining tone. "It's called, 'Give Me The Kamuicon And You Won't Die!'"

"Sounds catchy!" Rodimus said, the only one not realising how much destruction was about to erupt. Even Firestar was unnerved as the backing track picked up through the speakers.

"My word, that's quite the mouthful..."

Strongarm was on her peds, Fixit wrapped tight around her with a hand hovering over her subspace as she fought the urge to leap down and charge the hidden Decepticon. "Firestar, call the guards."

"Whatever for?" she asked, raising an eyeridge both at the demand and at Strongarm's new defensive stance.

"Because you have a serious party crasher on your hands."

Firestar still hesitated, evaluating both Strongarm and the red-optic femme below, before speaking low into her comm. "Technobots, we have a possible disturbance inside-"

And she was right about the benefits of getting a gestalt as security, they rushed to the stage and past the confused crowd before she even finished the direction. "Technobots, assemble and form Computro-!"

Like many singers, Rosanna didn't sound as good giving a live performance. In fact, when she started singing the discordant screech was so awful that it disabled the entire gestalt team and left them a writhing, malfunctioning pile on the floor. Even the crowd was affected, everyone clutching their audios desperately like their processors were melting through them. Among the VIPs Strongarm was spared by being higher up off the ground, but she still felt her helm rattle from the sound waves piercing through it.

"Primus, that singing is horrible! I mean... even worse than usual!" Even Fixit was struggling to stay on her body with how much he trembled from the painful lilting, but somehow he managed to stretch up over her audios and shield her from any more shrieking.

"What the Pit is going on, Fixit?!" Strongarm was only slightly put off by how her voice seemed to echo dully around her ringing helm, with Fixit's stutters having the same effect.

 _"I... have no idea. It's some kind of audio assault tactic!"_

"Huh, that's what I'd call most of her music anyway..." Strongarm kept herself low under the balcony wall, seeing her team following suit and cowering with their helms held tightly in their hands.

"Honey, if I have friends everywhere, you have weirdos tryin' to get us all killed!" Wheeljack hissed, only audible because he was closest to her. Even Thunderhoof was driven crazy by the deafening noise, trying to carve himself a hole in the ground to hide in with his horns, or maybe just to hide from Filch's crazed clawing and cawing that only added to the cacophony.

"Right... guess we're dealing with this alone." Strongarm pulled her only trusted weapon out, pushed herself upright with it and hauled herself to her peds with the balcony supporting her. The shrill shrieks paused just long enough for her to announce her leaving.

"Miss Firestar, thank you for the invitation, and I apologise for having to ruin the evening." She saluted with half of her pole, turned to leap off the balcony with a slap of the Bond Band on her wrist.

 **xx**

 _In which Firestar is a total cougar and Airachnid keeps making really bad decisions in choosing who to send after Strongarm and her magic armour._

 _Points to anyone who recognised the Fireball Charming and the (less subtle) Mirage and Tracks cameos._


	25. Smack My Glitch Up

It wasn't the first time Strongarm had to fight a psychotic pink femme, but that didn't make her any more eager to do it again. Fixit had stripped her by the time she hit the floor, naked grey protoform shining silver in the sweltering neon firelight. She could feel the heat of the flames sweeping against her prickling skin, all too aware of all the optics above focused on her. At least Rosanna's glare was filtered through a red visor beneath creased eyeridges, and she was too busy scowling to let out another long screech.

"Hmmph, Airachnid said you'd be stubborn..."

"Really? Cause no one warned me your singing was even worse in person," Strongarm said back, only making the other femme giggle or scoff, or some hideous combination of both sounds. Whatever it was, not even Fixit could stop her audios grating at the sound of it as her grip on her pole dangerously loosened for a nanoklick.

"What do I care? I'm not Rosanna, I'm Flip Sides!" She spread her servos wide as she announced herself, the true star of the evening. "Rosanna 2.0! The Pint Sized Painbringer!"

Strongarm recovered quickly enough to pull her pole back for a vicious swing towards her. "No one needs that many names, dammit!" She braced herself for impact against the singer… one that never came as she hit empty air and ended up spinning in a circle from her wasted momentum and unbalanced shoulders. At first she thought Rosanna, or Flip Sides, had managed to dodge in time, but as she regained her balance she saw someone standing in the window of his DJ booth, aiming his servo towards where Flip Sides lay twitching in a mound of toppled speakers.

"Try sayin' that to Ultra Magnus, old fragger has about five of them on a good day," he muttered, throwing himself down on the floor as the incapacitated crowd around them only just started to stir.

"Jazz?" Strongarm's disbelief was answered with a shiny grin and a shinier glint of Jazz's visor.

"Takes a lot more than some supersonic waves to knock me down," he boasted loudly, obviously having tuned his audios low enough that he couldn't hear the piercing sounds. He dialed his audios back to normal levels and balanced his weapon on his shoulders, only then abruptly noticing how her armour had changed. "Uh..."

"Please don't ask," she groaned, already blushing at the thought of the first thing everyone else seeing when they recovered being a half-naked femme.

Fortunately for her, Jazz just shrugged and slammed his gun down into his other servo. "Then I won't."

Whatever it was he used to knock Flip Sides back, it didn't last long. She was already upright again, baring her denta like a tiny turbopup. "That's it, you asked for it! Ramhorn and Nook, attack!"

Both Jazz and Strongarm took up defensive positions as she released her weapons from the speakers on either side of her… two cassettes, one brown and one blue, both barely half her size. And, as cassettes often do, they just sat there unmoving and unthreatening, for at least five awkward nanoklicks as their owner threw another tantrum.  
"I said _attack_ , you useless hunks of metal! You've been sleeping all day, it's time to wake up!" Flip Sides tried to tilt the brown one up with a ped, but it stubbornly fell back on its side. Jazz and Strongarm meanwhile were too utterly bewildered to do anything as she lectured her lazy pets.

"Grrrr, fine! I'll do it myself!" Flip Sides stood back and held out her servos, like she was about to shoot something from her palms. "Life Fiber Absorption, _activate_!"

Now the cassettes decided to move, as glowing red tendrils shot out from them and wrapped themselves around Flip Sides' wrists, arms, tethering themselves tightly as the plating they held onto started to shift around her. It wasn't the extravagant lightshow of fusion that Strongarm had with Fixit, but was clear enough that Flip Sides was changing.

Jazz, by virtue of having no idea what he was seeing, was the only one able to voice Strongarm's own confusion. "What... in the Pit?!"

"Kamuis aren't the only things Minicons can be!" Flip Sides announced, screeching again and flinging out her servos as they morphed and warped, stretched out into great spears of glittering light reflected by her grinning denta. "Just a little pinch of Life Fibers can turn any one of them into a weapon!" The streams of light flashed once, briefly blinding both bots, before dissolving to reveal a monstrous horn on one servo and a duo of bladed teeth on the other, like her hand had become a giant dexi-squirrel's mouth. The dark pink of her armour bled away under the aggressively bright glow of the Fibers tying the Minicons to her, as if colour itself shied away from the greedy parasites.

" _Be careful, Strongarm, she's… she's got a twenty percent Life Fiber composition!"_ Fixit almost hissed from fear at what he was seeing, telling Strongarm how she should have been feeling from it.

"Is that a lot?" she asked quietly.  
" _Ten percent per Minicon attached to her. Enough to compete with us if we don't stay alert..."_

Jazz didn't quite get the warning though, as he readied his heavy weapon on his shoulder. "Well, if the freak show is over, 'Flip Sides', I think you've out stayed your welco- _GAAAH_!" His digit slipped off the trigger as he just dodged being skewered by the spike growing from the femme's left arm, while Strongarm had to try and evade the vicious chattering mouth on her right, trying to fend it off with backward swipes of her pole. Flip Sides didn't even move; she stayed rooted to the deserted stage as her servos snapped out like branches after her enemies, seeking them both out mercilessly. Strongarm only managed to escape by hauling herself up to one of the lower balconies, hiding there from the savage sharp teeth and heaving out heavy vents. Wherever Jazz was, he must have found safety somewhere else as Flip Sides soon gave up and pulled her enhanced servos back to resume her pealing, lethal encore.

"You couldn't have warned me about _that_ , Fixit?" Strongarm hissed as the Minicon quickly covered her audios again before the sound could rattle her processor any more. Even through the covering she could almost pick out lyrics, a cheerful tribute to Strongarm's 'impending death' and whatever rhymed with it.

" _I-I never… I didn't know…"_ Fixit gulped as his eye panels sagged under her chin. " _I didn't think others could harm-harness Fibers!"_

"Well, Airachnid obviously knows more about them than us…" Strongarm tried to wipe her hands clean of coolant, almost grateful that she didn't have enough armour coverage to make her overheat. The exertion only partly came from having to run from the slashing choppers after her; the other half was from embarrassment, the same kind she felt having to fight Filch. Except here the audience was captive with nowhere to run, and she couldn't kid herself that maybe they wouldn't see her like this.

At least Jazz didn't ask about it, even when he collapsed beside her after some surely exhausting maneuvering to get to her.

"Damn fraggin' tricky-aft freaky cassette arms… can't get a clear shot at her," he panted, letting his weapon fall from his tired servos. "I assume _you_ know what in the sweet name of Primus is goin' on?"

"Better than anyone else here, at least…" Strongarm trailed off just as something heavy landed in her lap, the same concussive blaster Jazz had been pulling around.

"In that case, you keep her distracted!" he decided. "If she can't sing, then she can't stop bots getting out. Take my bass cannon and get up close to her, I'll evacuate the place."

"...Bass cannon?" she asked, fiddling skeptically with the huge dials and chunky buttons covering the stock of the blaster.

"Yeah, cause… well, it's a cannon that shoots bass. I'm not good at naming things. Good luck!" He retreated as quickly as he arrived, not giving Strongarm time to ask for a role swap (though she supposed if everyone was busy getting out they wouldn't have time to see her…). Her goal was still to defeat Flip Sides, but at least now she had some proper firepower.

"This might've been a lot easier if you didn't swallow my own guns, Fixit," she sighed, positioning the cannon across her chest with a digit bolted on the hefty trigger as she ducked under the balcony wall.

" _The Fibers were asleep for a long while… they were hungry,"_ Fixit said meekly, and Strongarm had to laugh as she pulled herself up.

"Fair enough." As she precariously balanced on the railing, not helped at all by a combination of heeled peds and heavy shoulders, she noted how Flip Sides put herself in the very center of the room as she pulled the megaphone switch on the cannon.

"Hey, _Fail_ Sides!" Strongarm's voice carried further than the room, thrumming through the walls as she bellowed down the barrel. "You gonna stand down there all day or am I just gonna rust up here?"

Flip Sides quickly homed in on her through the crackly trash talk, hoarse from all her lethal lilting. "Ready to stop being a coward, Autobot?!"

"More like ready to kick your aft any day of the decacycle!" Strongarm called back, squeezing the trigger hard in her haste. She wasn't quite prepared for the recoil a concussive blast generated, so she hit the wall at her back with almost the force that smacked into Flip Sides. The blast widened the farther it travelled, getting weaker with its range, enveloping both the femme and her flapping servos in a cone of gravity that plastered her to the floor.

Strongarm pulled herself out of the frame-shaped hole she'd made in the wall, swept her pole up in her free hand and, as Jazz said, leapt from the balcony to get closer to Flip Sides while she was down. The bass cannon blipped as it recharged its sonic generator, but she could still use it to bludgeon the barbed horn shooting out towards her while her pole crashed against the teeth trying to snap at her. With her defending limbs spread out she ended up crash-landing right on Flip Sides' chest. The femme wheezed as air was forced out of her vents by the heels slamming into her spark, but her legs were still free to kick her body upright with enough force to dislodge Strongarm. Her monstrous servos retreated behind her to gather momentum as they shot out again towards Strongarm, deflected only by Fixit's reflexes as Strongarm whipped the pole around to smack the attacks aside. The horn nicked at her arms while the gnawing denta tried to chew off her digits, but it kept Flip Sides so focused on controlling the cassettes that she couldn't keep up her shrill singing. Over the sound of metal clanks, Flip Sides' growls and her own grunts, she could hear a shuffle of bots recovering, Jazz's low reassurances as he started shepherding them out- but most of all, the sharp intake of air and questioning mumbles that told her people were definitely staring at her. Strongarm's hits would have been more accurate if not for her supreme embarrassment taking over, and a light blaring overhead over and over like the suspicious flash of a camera.

"Fixit... is it just me or is there something up there taking pictures of us?" As if she wasn't already self-conscious enough having to fend off a psychotic singer with her pets tethered to her servos... but it wasn't long before Filch shook herself free of the torpor from the highest balcony and went cawing after it with claws glaring in the firelight.

" _Looks like it's taken care of now,"_ Fixit said, angling his optics after Filch while Strongarm persisted with driving Flip Sides backwards. Her pole batted the mouth away while she shoved the barrel of the bass cannon against the horn, sending out a blast that shot her backwards and caused a long crack along the servo as the spike shattered. Strongarm shielded herself from the sharp edges flying out in a deadly fan, ducking down from a safe distance as Flip Sides realised one of her weapons was now in pieces.

Yet she felt weary, drained, like she'd collapse if she tried to get back up. How long had she been fighting for? It couldn't have been longer than five klicks. Everything went by so quickly, but she was as exhausted as a bot trying to run across the Sea of Rust. Her joints and peds ached trying to carry around Fixit's hefty design, especially when her fuel lines draining with every nanoklick she spent trying to stay alive. If it took this much effort just to take out one part of Flip Sides' attack, how could she keep it up? How could she hope to defeat Airachnid herself if she couldn't even get past one of her minions?

"Fixit, I can't keep this up…" Her pleads grated like razors against her dry throat. "I'm making a complete aft of myself running around like this and barely making a dent in these defenses! Can't you ease up on the energon a little? Or at least not be so heavy?"

" _I can't stop the Fibers from draining you, not when you're like this- "_

"You mean 'about to fragging collapse and go to the Allspark'?" she interrupted, hissing as her vision glitched and fractured like a broken mirror, showing just how futile her efforts were.

As much as Strongarm just wanted to lie down there and accept defeat, Fixit wasn't having it.

" _Strongarm, listen to me! You need to forget about everyone else, just pay attention to what you're doing and where you're hitting!"_ She'd never heard the Minicon like this before, a firm command echoing in her shielded audios, more like a sergeant than a worker. _"You can beat her, but you need to stop caring about who's watching! Are you going to let some staring strangers stop you from kicking aft? You're the one fighting to keep them safe, cause you're the only one who can! You've been chosen by the Life Fibers, NOW ACT LIKE IT ALREADY!"_

Whether it was her ingrained respect for authority, the shock at hearing Fixit so confident for once or just the surge of energy itself suddenly flooding out from her spark, Strongarm felt the fatigue melt off her frame. Her optics burned as they fixed Flip Sides as their target, her legs creaked and wailed as she pounded them along the floor to charge into her, and her vocaliser thrummed with a battle cry that matched her rival's own deadly vocaliser. With so much energy bleeding out of her armour seams, it was only too easy for Strongarm to crash her pole into Flip Sides while she was still trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. The singer bent backwards out of the pole's path before it could hit, but Strongarm was already reversing the swing downwards to clip Flip Sides' leg. Fixit seemed to know exactly where to pull her servos to and fro, each wild swipe somehow connecting with a part of Flip's frame. And her focus was so intense that she didn't even feel the constant blush from being half-naked, didn't even register the shock rippling through everyone else who managed to find shelter nearby. She was stronger, faster, more skilled than one of Airachnid's own Life Fiber-powered agents, actually _winning_ against her.

And she looked damn good doing it.

" _It's working, Strongarm!"_ Fixit yelled, releasing his tight grip on her body to let her leap behind Flip Sides. _"The Fibers are linking up fully now!"_

And Strongarm could feel it; her spark picking up such a frantic pace out of nowhere, thoughts and calculations that weren't quite her own slowly bleeding into her processor, the rush of energon in her fuel lines getting hotter and more intoxicating with every move she made.

Flip Sides was getting more desperate, abandoning her other servo to try and jab at Strongarm with the jagged remains of her horn, reaching a stalemate with a razor edge trying to push against the dented metal of her pole. With the power flooding her frame, Strongarm could have grinded the tiny femme into a pink stain on the floor with just a hard shove down...only pulling back from it when she felt the metal thrumming and glowing white under her red-lined digits, like it was part of her body.

"LIFE FIBER… _SYNCHRONISE_!" The thunderous announcement, forced out of Strongarm's vocaliser by something that wasn't at all from her own spark, combined with a blast of hissing light from every seam in Fixit's skin-tight plates and a fierce uppercut, slammed Flip Sides backwards with the power of a thousand bass cannons. As the femme thudded hard into the wall she forced her remaining servo weapon to shoot out towards Strongarm. But rather than try to shove the snapping teeth away, she didn't even slow down as she weaved between the bites, moving so that the entire arm ended up snaking itself into a knot and, with wild chomps and Strongarm ducking just in time, the teeth ended up shredding right through the shoulder controlling them. Now Flip Sides was dazed and armless as she sat limp in her own impact crater, flailing useless shredded limbs and blinking up at Strongarm through the smoky firelight.

"Y-You... you can't... beat me!" she wailed, like a sparkling with her toys broken right in front of her optics. Strongarm set the bass cannon down heavily by her peds, balancing her pole on her shoulder as she squinted down at the broken agent.

"I just did, dumbaft," she said, just as plume of flame belched out and surrounded Flip Sides in a hissing fireball, and just as she realised the impact crater was actually a fire vent. It was only decorative fire, not hot enough to melt frames, but it managed to set Flip's deformed servos alight and had her desperately rolling on the ground.

" _Well… Life Fibers are flammable. And she's twenty percent Fibers,"_ Fixit explained sheepishly as Strongarm watched the frantic attempts to put out the fire and salvage the scorched red strands.

"...Good to know," she muttered, watching her second victory squealing while her weapons turned to ashes with a voice too hoarse to knock anyone out again, except herself. Flip Sides collapsed as soon as the fire was gone, red visor fizzling back to blue and her colour scheme fading a shade or two brighter. Strongarm wondered if she was just imagining that, not noticing the other bot standing beside her until she spoke.

"I do so hate uninvited guests..." Strongarm tried to hide how she jumped as she turned sideways towards Firestar as she held a remote in her hand, the buttons corresponding to the number of fire features in the room. Though wherever Firestar went, Rodimus wasn't far behind… in fact, the entire audience was still in the building, staring Strongarm down with what she could only describe as shock. The only ones who weren't paralysed with it were those in the VIP suite who'd already seen her fight before, but even they looked down with awe, Wheeljack especially.

"Uh… you're welcome?" she said skeptically to the waiting crowd, catching Firestar smiling to herself out of the corner of her optic.


	26. That Afterparty Aftertaste

"I TOLD YOU ALL, DIDN'T I?! 'Oh nooooo, Blurr, Rosanna's harmless, she couldn't _possibly_ be sneaking weapons through, leave the pets alone-' WELL, _WHO'S LAUGHING NOW_?!" Blurr seemed to have the gestalt security detail held hostage as he boasted to them, not even caring if they were listening or not. That was just one of the scenes Strongarm watched from her seat on the stage, spotlights doused and music silenced, still stuck in Fixit's less inconspicuous mode while she waited for the rush to wear off. The whole ensemble felt heavier now, as if the tight plates had gained bulk that she couldn't see, yet she wasn't hampered at all by it. Not even the weight of her winglets was an issue anymore, and they fluttered as if they were genuine wings on the back of an excited Seeker.

 _"Now I know why they say you should never meet your idols,"_ Fixit sighed, watching Flip Sides, or Rosanna, or whoever she really was being prodded by Knockout (conveniently the first bot on the scene, obviously not as far from the party as he'd told Firestar he would be). Wheeljack and Thunderhoof had lost themselves in the milling crowd, Filch kept herself to the overhead shadows, while Steve was still gazing gormlessly at the annoyed models and their armour sets still sparkling through the fresh gloomy atmosphere.

"Never took you as a pop fan, Fixit," Strongarm said, though after today she doubted much of what she really knew about the Minicon. Fixit must have sensed that doubt, but he didn't call attention to it.

 _"The Alchemor's radio once got stuck on a channel that played nothing but Rosanna tracks. My choices were either, enjoy it or go crazy,"_ he said, with the weary memory prodding at Strongarm's mind.

"I thought you _were_ going crazy, at least before the…" She trailed off, still not sure how to describe being suddenly so in-tune with her armour, other than now being able to walk without toppling in her heels.

" _Well, I… had to get you synchronised somehow. Your tanks were almost empty, you'd have went into stasis otherwise."_ Fixit said it sheepishly, like he'd broken some kind of rule instead of saving her life. Strongarm wished she knew where his cheek was so she could kiss it.

"Thanks. Really. I… couldn't have done it without you," she said instead, smiling when she felt his blush radiate along her protoform.

Approaching from across the room, Jazz helped himself to a seat beside her on the stage with help from his retrieved cannon. "So, uh... know where I can get armour like that for myself?" He gestured to the tiny flare of skirt fanning out from her hips, knowing full well not to touch from how she glared up at him.

"Kidding, kidding! It suits you best, really." He kept laughing quietly to himself as he leaned his servos against the stage. "Though I gotta say, we make a pretty good team, the two of us."

"Three of us, actually," she corrected, gesturing to Fixit's wide optics blinking across her collar. Jazz pulled his visor down, letting his own optics go just as wide when he noticed them, but he seemed immune to being speechless as he just shook his helm to recover, putting his visor back and turning his attention across to Flip Sides on the other side of the room.

"Tell you what, I've known Rosanna a whole century and I never knew she had a freaky Decepticon hidden away in there… makes you think just how well you know someone. Your dad isn't a secret Con agent, is he?"

"Not that I know of," Strongarm said, chuckling at the thought of her sire kicking his own Decepticon aft (and remembering the times he was drunk enough to try beating himself up anyway).

"At least he's always predictable," Jazz shrugged, pushing himself off the stage with a roll of his shoulders and an effortless heft of his cannon across his shoulders. "Well, if you two are ever near the Busta Belt, drop me a line! I can get ya' drinks on the house at PopNLocker, if you ever wanna get groovy. Just, uh… let me know what the dress code'll be in advance." He made four of his digits into tiny pistols and shot them towards Strongarm as he sauntered away, leaving her to wonder what he'd really just offered them.

"Thanks, we'll… remember that," she said unsurely, dangling her digits in a hesitant wave before something else tore her attention away; another warbling wail from Flip Sides' deadly vocaliser, but at least this one was only slightly unbearable on the audios.

"Looks like she's awake," Strongarm muttered, fighting the urge to cover herself with her servos as she gravitated towards the still-dazed femme. Her optics had blurred back to a dull blue, but even with Autobot colours in her gaze it was hard for Strongarm to see her as anything other than the manic Decepticon agent she'd just fought against.

At least, that was the case until Rosanna saw her dented cassettes laid out on the floor.

"RAMHORN, NOOK!" She pushed the medics and bots around her aside with a surprising display of strength to get to her pets, cradling their stasis-bound bodies to her chest. "My babies, my poor little babies, are you okay?!" That desperate screech was proof enough that Flip Sides had disappeared, at least for now.

"I'm no vet, but I'm sure they'll be fine. If anything, it's just as well they got set on fire. All the Fibers will have been burned away," Knockout sighed, not putting any more effort into soothing the singer's sobs with all his attention on a datapad in his hand. He might as well have been muttering to a steel wall anyway from all the heed Rosanna gave him.

"Didn't think we'd see you again so soon, Knockout," Strongarm greeted as she drew up to him, almost cracking a smile at how the medic's optics blew up at the sight of her in Fixit's 'full glory'.

"Believe me, Strongarm, I'm just as surprised..." But she didn't get long to appreciate his shock, as the medic soon noticed something else over her shoulder that instantly hardened his expression.

"Was hopin' I _wouldn't_ have to see you at all, 'Con," Wheeljack huffed, forcing himself in front of Strongarm, solidifying her theory that he was instantly summoned by other mechs trying to admire her.

"Believe me, Wrecker, the feeling is mutual," Knockout deadpanned, tapping his claws against his crossed servos, as Rosanna rushed past his legs to throw herself at Strongarm's peds.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't hurt my babies anymore, don't turn my faceplate into shavings and feed them to the Corvicon!" That was the most coherent of her begging, though even if Strongarm wasn't stunned by her rapid switch of spark she would have struggled to understand any more than the long stream of apologies.

"Well, you've certainly changed your tune now, huh?" Wheeljack quipped, staring down at the singer with a skeptical raised eyeridge. Rosanna sniffled, still sunken against Strongarm's foot until Ramhorn, roused by the theatrics of his owner, helped her up with his shattered horn providing support.

"I-I couldn't help it, I swear!" Rosanna insisted, hugging Ramhorn and still sniffling over his low bellows. "I... look, there's this... _thing_ in my processor, okay? It makes me... do bad things. I don't know I've done them until it's too late..."

It was one of the flimsiest excuses Strongarm had ever heard from a sober bot, but after everything she'd seen that day she was almost ready to believe anything. After all, it was the most sane explanation she could think of for what the Pit came over Rosanna. "And who put that thing in you?" she asked, ignoring Wheeljack's scoff of disbelief.

Rosanna blinked away tears, as if surprised that someone actually believed her. "I don't know... she had needles on her hands-"

"Mnemosurgeon," Knockout cut in, placed apart from the trio and still barely glancing up from his datapad.  
"Memo-nemo what now?" Wheeljack asked.

"A specially trained and equipped interrogation specialist." Knockout finally put his pad by his side as he faced the two Autobots. " I knew a few myself during the war, all working for Megatron... they were a state secret before the war, mostly used by the council to deal with difficult criminals, to get into their processors." He tapped a pair of claws against his helm. "Think of it like Empurata, except you lose everything _but_ your helm and hands."

Strongarm had only heard vaguely of Empurata before, but Wheeljack was old enough to have his face curdle at just the mention of it. "Of course Megatron had some more freaks hidden away..."

"Can you remember anything else, Rosanna?" Strongarm probed further, noting that the singer's frame seemed to shake more when she wasn't wailing. She hugged Ramhorn tight as she tried to think.

"Whoever put the thing in my head didn't activate it this time... it was someone else. Someone scarier..."

"Airachnid?" Strongarm guessed, or hoped. She didn't want to call it latter, from how Rosanna's vents froze and her entire body seized in the grip of invisible claws.  
"...How d'you know her name?"  
"Because we're trying to find her," Wheeljack said, kneeling down to glare harder at her. "You know where she is?"

Rosanna's limbs refused to move, but her face warred between pain and horror, and finally sorrow. "No, I... I'm sorry. It's some kind of signal that she sends over my commlink, but I don't know where it comes from." She traced Ramhorn's broken forehead forlornly, stroking the dexi-squirrel Nook as he bounced up to her, and just as Strongarm was about to succumb to the agony of being back at square one there was a shimmer in those big blue optics, one that no shade of red could have drowned out.

"But... I _do_ know someone who could track it..." She spoke slowly, the same speed as the realisation dawning; even Ramhorn seemed excited by it, and Nook gathered his tail around her legs. "And I can take you to her!"

Wheeljack had already pushed himself back up, but curiosity won out over suspicion. "Who?"  
"Vibes! She's an old friend, lives just a few light years away. She can get into the signal, see if she can decode its source!" Rosanna reeled off quickly, almost lilting off into a musical with new hope, jabbing frantically at the air as if she could pinpoint exactly where her friend lay in the galaxy. Strongarm wasn't quite sure what to make of it, too wary to trust the first lead put in front of her even if it was the only one she had.

"You're very eager to help... what do you want in return?"

Still posing like a triumphant navigator, Rosanna blinked a while before she managed to think of an answer. "Well, I... I wanna come with you! If Airachnid's the one who turned me into a yucky puppet and put my babies in danger, I wanna see her aft kicked!" The cassettes at her peds bristled around her in agreement, but the dynamic display didn't stop Wheeljack from barking with laughter.

"You really think you'll survive long enough to see her, sweetie?" The Wrecker must have been twice the size of the singer, but Rosanna was undeterred as she whirled around with a digit thrust up at him. She almost managed to look intimidating, if only because of Nook perched on her shoulder with chipped denta chattering away.

"Hey, just cause I'm small doesn't mean I'm not tough! If I can survive a stellar-long tour across 500 different solar systems, then I can handle anything!"

 _"She's got a point, that tour broke a galactic record for longest time spent on a zero-gravity stage with a manatronatee!"_ Fixit backed up, though for some reason Strongarm didn't quite trust the gushing of a self-proclaimed fanboy.

She did trust those optics, though, still bright despite the tired glaze over them. And, most importantly, the blue light shining out of them.

"...You can accompany us up until we meet Vibes for ourselves," she decided. "After that, there's no guarantee you can stay."

"...Fair enough." Rosanna kept herself calm, but the sag of her pets betrayed her true mood.

"Dad, could you show her and her pets to the Riotjack?"

Wheeljack didn't seem as annoyed as he should have been at having another stowaway along for the ride, however brief it might be, but the grumpiness came right through in his reluctant nod as he herded the three bots towards the exit.  
"You better keep those things in stasis onboard cause I am _not_ cleanin' up after them!" He pointed to Ramhorn and Nook as they bounded past him, probably scouting the way for their dainty owner.

Strongarm meant to watch them leave, but she finally found Thunderhoof annoying a pair of poor trapped models robbed of their spotlight too soon.

"Listen, babe, trust me, anythin' you want, I can get it," he drawled while they tried to ignore him over a glass of high-grade. "How bout this; whole case of MammAdd, just 2K credits, whaddaya say?"

Trying to deal in narcotics within audio range of a police officer was only his second biggest mistake. He realised the first one when the first femme soured over her drink. "Are you suggesting that I _need_ MammAdd?"

"N-No, no! You're gorgeous, babe, really, but... y'know, nothin' wrong with fillin' out the assets a little." Thunderhoof winked just before he got a face full of high-grade dregs for his trouble as the models left in a swirl of ludicrously expensive armour and scowls that came for free.

"Even if I _did_ want some, I could get them for less than _half_ that price," one of them muttered just as she slipped out of audio range, enraging the Decepticon even more than an acid splash in his face might have done.

"What? From who?! It's Swindle, isn't it, that slimy scalping piece of-!"

"Bambi, Steve, get your afts in gear!" Wheeljack yelled, interrupting the Decepticon's attempt at a stampede across the room. "None of those girls want your ugly mug up their protoplates, come on!"

Thunderhoof dragged himself to the exit, for once too tired to keep his horns up, while Steve had much more trouble extracting himself from a hoard of alien admirers he seemed to collect, as if they'd never seen a drone before. Because they probably hadn't, now that Strongarm thought about it.

That was all she had time to think about really, before someone else was trying to give her a spark attack with an unannounced appearance behind her.

"Well well, my sire's research never said kamuis would be so... well fitting." Either Knockout had been biding his time until Wheeljack disappeared again, or he just so happened to spot her milling around by herself. A Decepticon would have always fitted the former.  
"Shut up," Strongarm said over her shoulder, not falling into the trap of turning around and letting him see her exposed front. Synchronised or not, the blush across her body was still obvious from all the ogling she was getting, and the new rush of hot energon would only make Fixit stay like this for even longer.

Considering how much Knockout knew of Life Fibers, Strongarm almost suspected that he knew that full well.

"I mean it as a compliment, dear!" Knockout insisted, making the effort to come around and face her directly. "You two do make quite a pair... especially since I see you've figured out sychronisation."

"Think you can say that again without staring at my chestplates?" she asked.

Knockout laughed with not an ounce of guilt. It just wasn't in his nature. "Well, I didn't come over to just shower praise. I have a... suspicion about Rosanna. The little glitch in her processor."

Strongarm furrowed her eyeridges, only half allowing Knockout to drape a servo over her shoulder to shield them from other prying optics. "What kind of suspicion?"

"That it's a Trepan Trigger," Knockout said, a grim vice suddenly clamped on his tone. "It's like an invisible switch planted in the mind. It flips when you say a certain phrase."

Strongarm blinked, slowly seeing how it all fit together even if it made almost no sense to any rational part of her spark. "And what phrase is that?"  
She felt the medic shrug. "Different for every bot that has it. Usually the only one who knows it is whoever put it in there... one of the surgeons I knew was Trepan herself. She created the Trigger, and only she could plant one powerful enough to force such a dramatic change in a bot like Rosanna." Knockout released her with a flair of his claws, still holding his helm close to her audios.

"Take it from me, Strongarm. Don't try and find Trepan, but... be careful. She won't take kindly to one of her projects being ruined..."

Only now did Strongarm fully appreciate that she had no idea what she'd gotten herself into. "I'll keep that in mind," she said, with only a slight tremor.

"See that you do. No matter how well you fight, it's your processor that usually ends up saving your spark." Knockout tapped his own helm, speaking with the weight of experience, before making himself a blank slate again with just a blink and the slightest shake of his head. It was a skill that must have taken a lifetime to master.

"Though if you're not in too much of a hurry after certain doom, my carrier wanted a word with you before you departed," he said.

"Oh, jeez..." Strongarm had completely forgotten Firestar in the mess she'd made of her evening. Yet the femme that came flaring up to her was not the furious one she'd been dreading; instead she looked like she'd just been visited by Primus himself.

"You certainly do liven up a party, dear... usually I'd need to empty my credit account for a show like that!" Firestar clapped as she laughed at her own tiny joke, sparks dancing around her face as her fire whipped around with a life of its own, happily singeing the air.

"You're... not mad?" Strongarm asked, more confused than she'd felt all evening.  
"Primus, no, I'll be the center of gossip for vorns!" Firestar dismissed the notion with a well-practiced flick of her wrist, managing to use that same hand to gesture to Fixit clad over her body. "Not to mention that your... armour is much more than meets the eye. And you somehow pull it off!"

Strongarm resisted the urge to make a quip about wanting to pull it off literally and stuff herself into some regulation uniform, if only because she didn't have time to make it before Firestar yanked her close with a servo stretched over her wide shoulders, her cheek almost sizzling against the flare of fire until it managed to flick itself the other way.

"Reflector! Come over here, get some pictures of us!" Firestar was already going through a gallery of poses as a trio of battered Minicons tramped up, seamlessly fusing together into a camera with legs acting as a tripod. The flashes came as fast as Firestar could react to, which was leagues beyond what Strongarm was capable of. During the whole disorienting shoot the only thing she managed to change was how her face screwed up against the camera clicks, so dazed that she didn't notice Firestar taking her hand behind their backs until Reflector had finally disassembled himself again.

"Consider this a gift, for stepping in." Firestar whispered, barely moving her mouth as she kept Strongarm's helm close to hers, smooth digits leaving something behind in Strongarm's bulky palm. "Wherever you're going, if you ever need a little something special, turn the center three times. It will summon someone to you, they'll be inclined to help if you mention my name. And remember this..."

She pulled her servo free and made to turn away, one last whisper left in Strongarm's audio. "The Circle of Fire burns much brighter than the Circle of Light."

The entire exchange couldn't have taken longer than half a klick, but it took even longer than that for Strongarm to process it. Firestar had disappeared back into the crowd with not a single glance back, leaving Strongarm to wonder at the golden metal band in her palm, carved with a wide circle in the center, and at her parting words.

"...The Pit is _that_ supposed to mean?" she asked herself, though even Fixit and his parasitic friends had no answer for her.

 **xx**

 _I know Trepan's supposed to be a mech but I swear to god I thought he was a femme when I first saw him and I was never so betrayed in my life. (And it was Flying_Condors fault for telling me about the trigger and making me want to bring Trepan in anyway so pshsh)_

 _Condors is also to blame for helping come up with MammAdd, a Cybertronian drug that simulates pregnancy in femmes... resulting in some very enlarged chestplates :3c_


	27. Good Vibrations

Strongarm had no more answers and only more questions as she sat in the Riotjack, right next to Wheeljack as he threaded his way through the swarm of ships still radiating around Velocitron. She kept one hand in her subspace, fingers clamped curiously around the gift from Firestar, passing her thumb over the gap in the center. Was it supposed to be hollow, or did something precious fall out of it? That was the least of her worries, but it managed to distract her from confronting the slew of new enemies she'd just made in the past few days. From how Fixit prickled around her, finally back to a decent form, she guessed he didn't want to think about it either.

So she turned her attention to something else that had been silently bothering her since their departure. "Hey, Dad?"

"Yeah, darlin'?" Wheeljack asked.

"Do you know what the 'Circle of Fire' is?"

Wheeljack loosened his grip on the controls for a nanoklick, made his thinking face (mostly just a hard scowl) before giving up and shrugging. "Can't say I've heard of it. There's a 'Circle of Light' but that's mostly just full of wussies throwin' swords around."

"Uh, Dad, didn't _you_ use swords during the war?" Strongarm said, knowing full well from his stories of chopping Decepticons in half and leaving mounds of decapitated helms in his wake. Wheeljack must have remembered too from how he started stuttering.

"Well, yeah, but… least I knew how to use 'em!" He took a hand off the controls to jab across at Strongarm and her rolling optics, only to give up again when he knew there was no point arguing with someone related to him.

"So, Pop Princess, where about is this friend of yours?" he said over to Rosanna sitting at the back of the room, as she stroked the cassettes in her lap.

"Keep going forwards, you'll reach the Orches system eventually. There's a gas giant on the edge of it. She'll be on the largest moon." She gave the directions mechanically, more robotic than anyone else on the ship. Even if she'd avoided getting arrested before they left Velocitron, she had the look of someone kept locked in a cage.

After studying Rosanna for some empty nanoklicks, Strongarm tried not to think of how she'd been trying to slice her to pieces less than a day ago as she approached the forlorn femme.

"Hey, are you alright?" she asked.

Rosanna didn't look up from her cradled cassettes, only held them tighter. "I just lost total control of myself with no memory of it, let my beloved pets get hurt and probably ruined my reputation all across this galactic quadrant. But I'm fine, really." Even shrugging seemed to exhaust her, and she put what energy she had into making herself look tiny. Maybe that exhaustion was why she hadn't asked about Strongarm's choice in battle armour, if she even cared.

"How did you know it was something in your processor that caused it?" Strongarm asked, as gently as she could manage. But even words wrapped in cotton seemed to drive barbs into Rosanna as she shivered.

"I've had it for a while... always there in my head, waiting to turn on. I just didn't know what it was until... I don't really want to think about it right now."

Strongarm's officer training made her want to press on anyway, but Fixit tugged her back towards her seat to leave the singer in peace. As she sat, he seemed to gulp in an echo around her audios. " _I know the feeling_..."

With the other passengers elsewhere on the ship, the control room went dead all but for the unwillingness of anyone to bring to back to life. Wheeljack at least made an attempt, kicking back in his seat and letting the ship cruise as he reached for the comm panel.

"How 'bout I put on some radio while we wait?" He flicked a switch, and found himself unfortunately still dialed into Velocitron's national frequency.

" _Officials are refusing to comment on the whereabouts of Rosanna or on what exactly happened here to warrant such disruption to the show. Event organiser and designer Firestar had this to say-"_ By that point Wheeljack had finally managed to get his frantically flailing hands to hit the power switch again.

"Uh… never mind. Princess, you tell anyone where you were goin' before we left?"

For the first time since she boarded the ship Rosanna looked up from her lap, with a very worrying confusion written across her faceplate. "No. Why would they care? I'm a grown femme, I can go where I want!"

Wheeljack couldn't explain why anyone would care about the disappearance of an adored singer with his face buried in his hand, so Strongarm resisted the urge to follow suit and spoke slowly.

"Because you're a very well known celebrity who, for all they know, has just been kidnapped. Which makes _us_ wanted criminals." She also resisted pointing out that half the crew were already wanted criminals to start with.

Once the true impact sank in, Rosanna's response was much more composed than it should have been. "...Oops."

By now Wheeljack had unstapled his hand from his face, revealing a hard-gritted scowl dripping out a bitter stream of sarcasm. "And of course they'll believe us when we say, 'Oh, we didn't _mean_ to kidnap her, honest! We didn't _mean_ to cross half the galaxy with a cargo bay full'a fugitives! Just ask my daughter, the police officer with the living stripper uniform-!'"

"Dad, you are NOT! HELPING!" Strongarm loved her father, but he really did need a good slap sometimes. Her palm smashed his scowl aside and shut him up as Rosanna skipped up and tried to push the duo apart.

"Don't say that!" she pleaded, only able to push against the two bots' legs. "It won't be that bad! I'm sure we can get it all sorted out when we meet-"

And then she was gone in a blink and a streak of pink. Despite being barely taller than the control console, Rosanna managed to clamber over it in the time it took Wheeljack and Strongarm to turn their helms.

"There! The blue giant! Look for the biggest satellite around it!" She squashed herself against the viewport on the other side of the room, jabbing a finger incessantly at the patch of swirling blue huddled in the very corner of the empty black space. Strongarm had to squint to even see it but Wheeljack was already back in his captain's seat, rubbing idly at the dark bruise on his cheek.

"Got it. Strongarm, you go get the other hitchhikers up here if they haven't killed each other already."

Strongarm didn't know if that was something to be hopeful for, but as she searched the ship for them she could hear Thunderhoof's drawl coming from the cargo bay.

"Now if you put down seven that means you can get rid of all the other cards in the suit, and- Filch, sweetie, for the last time, you're not allowed to look over! And STOP EATIN' THEM, STEVE!" The Decepticon was pulling a hand of hearts out of the drone's mouth when he finally noticed Strongarm tapping her hips in the doorway.

"I do hope I'm not seeing _gambling_ on my ship, else I'd need to confiscate the offending items," she deadpanned. Steve and even Filch were smart enough to flee from her glare, the latter trying to flap past her, but Thunderhoof just frowned as he pocketed his data-sheaves.

"Hey, don't knock the cards, a'ight? These things'll save ya' spark one day, I guarantee." He prodded one of them towards her chest, the tiny pad flickering its face up at her in the telltale sign of being reprogrammed.

"Would that be because they're rigged?" she asked in a sigh. Thunderhoof only winked at her as he slipped past and joined the others in the control room.

Just as the door hissed shut behind her, the comm panel crackled to life in a rhythmic lilt that didn't at all sound like a threat- at least not at first.

" _Yo yo, better back off before I blast ya' down! You want an autograph, you get one off the datanet like everyone else_ -!"

"Blaster, it's Rosanna. Let us in."

" _Oh, oh! Hey, Rosie! Long time no see! Sorry, sorry, we're used to you showin' up in somethin' a little more... glitzy_." The mech's tune quite literally changed in an instant, but it still wasn't one that hit right with Wheeljack as he glared across at the panel's speaker.

"He talkin' slag about my ship?!" he hissed, trying to rise from his chair but unwilling to move past Strongarm's hand on his chest.

"Dad, technically it's _my_ ship, so calm down before I slap you again."

To her credit, Rosanna went on with the negotiation like they weren't even there. "Yeah, well, I've made some new friends recently... is Vibes around? I need her expertise on something."

" _Sure thing, I'll go get her. Meet us at the front door, as usual. She and the kids will be dying to see ya_ '!" Blaster cut off with his excitement sending static across the line, and a new sense of joy to Rosanna's ailing spark.

All Strongarm could feel was a strong anxiety brought on by a single word. "...Kids?"

"Blaster and Vibes' sons, Rewind and Eject," Rosanna explained, kneeling to pet the awakened dexi-squirrel cassette that hopped up to her. "Cute little guys, but Rewind has a bit of a crush on me, bless him."

Strongarm wasn't overly fond of sparklings, but she got some relief knowing they should at least be old enough to walk. As Rosanna roused Ramhorn and prepared for greeting her friends, Strongarm noticed the return of a persistent scowl on Wheeljack's face as he sat slumped in his seat, arms stretched out like slabs as they landed the ship.

"What's wrong now, Dad?"

"Never liked Blaster," he muttered, shuddering with the ship as it hit solid ground. "That mech's taste in music was the _real_ enemy durin' the war."

"Stay here, then. I've already been in one brawl today, I do _not_ need another." Strongarm was already heading out after Rosanna with the others before Wheeljack could argue his case, and the Wrecker knew it would be a waste to try.

"Fine, fine, I'll just… try and make titanium outta chrome again. Or memorise the cosmic order of elements. Or if I'm feelin' _real_ creative, I'll-" The door closed and thankfully cut off whatever vulgar suggestion he was about to make.

"He'll keep himself busy in there for a while," Strongarm sighed. "Someone else'll need to stay behind to make sure Filch doesn't see anything that sets her off." She was about to turn when she saw the Corvicon taking up her favourite perch on Thunderhoof's horns, with the latter seething quietly at the huge weight on his shoulders. Yet another problem solved.

"Thanks for volunteering, Thunderhoof," Strongarm said, patting the Con's shoulder knowing he couldn't run after them or move at all faster than a crawl. Even so, Steve was smart enough to keep up with the two femmes as they briskly made for the ship's exit.

"If that's everything dealt with... lead the way, Rosanna."

And Rosanna was only too happy to oblige, pelting across the grey slate of the moon as soon as the boarding ramp went low enough to leap off of. Only her cassettes could keep up with her, leaving Strongarm and Steve behind in a cloud of grit as they tried to run along the ragged surface underneath them, and ignore what hung over them.

The gas giant orbiting, before nothing more than a smudge against the viewport, now consumed the whole sky in a vast crumpled blanket of blue, like it was endless daytime on a volcanic Earth. No wonder Steve paused to gaze up at it, falling into the whipped winds a million miles high like Strongarm was tempted to from just a glance upwards; but there'd be time to admire the galaxy's scenery when it wasn't in danger. Though even as Strongarm tugged the drone onwards, she thought she saw the cyan curls above moving so slightly, vibrating even, across the sky.

Rosanna was already leagues ahead of them, but with only one structure in sight it was obvious enough where she was heading. The building itself was short, squat with grey plating that almost blended into the charred rocks around it, and the tangled tower reaching out of it seemed like a ladder up to the planet perched above. At the front door waited two bots, a mech and femme with servos stretched out towards Rosanna as she ran towards them.

"Rosie, my girl! Get your aft in here and gimme a damn hug!" Vibes stepped out to meet her and they collided with a crash of amber plating against pink, and coned antennae wiggling from Vibes' helm.

"Save one for me too!" Blaster called out, consuming both femmes in a huge embrace of red and yellow armour while the cassettes circled their peds. They were still laughing against each other when Strongarm finally caught up and panted to a stop, bent over with Fixit swelling around her heaving chest while Steve skidded behind her. Noticing the new arrivals, Blaster released the femmes and fixed Strongarm with a curious look.

"So who's the strays? And for once I don't mean your pets," Vibes said, angling her antenna towards the two of them. "

"Strongarm and Steve," Rosanna said. "They… well, it's a long story-"

Just as Strongarm summoned the strength to straighten her spinal strut, Blaster went ahead and smacked a hand against it to jolt her right back down. "Tell us after you calm the kids down then, they're waitin' in the front hall," he said. "You two make yourselves at home, any friend of Rosie's is a friend of ours!"

"Th-thanks…" Strongarm kept her groan of pain quiet as she rubbed her back and trudged towards lead the way inside, speaking to Rosanna over his shoulder while her cassettes folded themselves up to be carried.

"Now the kids have been grounded for the past decacycle, Eject for tryin' to use a scraplet as a lob ball and Rewind for sendin' fake nuclear warnings across the colonies-"

" _Again_?"

"I tell ya', I don't know how the little slag keeps getting around the firewalls! I told 'em they could see you then go right back to their rooms, so they'll be a little... hyper." Blaster stopped before a door off to the side of the main entrance hall, a narrow and empty space that seemed to serve only as a hub for the waiting for Strongarm and Steve to catch up he knocked the door twice, craned his helm towards it for a few nanoklicks as a sound picked up behind it.

"AND EJECT COMES IN WITH THE TOUCHDOOOOO-!"

Then Blaster stepped back and pulled the door open, releasing a blurr of blue armour that raced across the room only to tumble across the floor, landing almost perfectly right at Rosanna's peds as he finished his chant.

"-OOOOOOOOOWN!" The Minicon, or perhaps just the young mech (Strongarm really couldn't tell), cradled a ball to his chest as he posed for a non-existent adoring crowd.

"Nice to see you too, Eject," Rosanna laughed, helping him stand up into a victorious flourish. "Where's your brother?"

Another voice called out from somewhere further in the room. "I'm coming, I'm coming!"

"We'll be in the studio when you're done with them," Vibes said quietly as she and Blaster took their leave up a flight of grate-metal steps. They clanged away as another mech, similar to Eject in all but colour, pelted into view with a red dot blinking aside his helm.

"R-Rosanna! I-I, uh... hey! I heard you were doing Velocity Vogue this cycle!" He must have been Rewind, and young indeed from how his voice cracked like glass near anywhere Wheeljack tried to sing.

"You heard right," Rosanna said as she entered the room, peering around at the bank of monitors set up along one wall. "Is that why you had four screens all tuned to the streaming channel?"

"You're tellin' me, he made me miss the last two goals of the Gigantion basketball finals! It doesn't matter if they always win, I still like watching!" Eject grumbled as he stomped back inside, with Strongarm and Steve following for need to fit in with this strange new family.

"Uh... just to see how they do the lighting!" Rewind insisted with a gulp as he tried to switch the monitors off. "It cut out before you showed up though... what happened?"

The time it took Rosanna to answer felt like an eon to anyone who knew why, and even her cassettes shifted nervously in their harness on her back.

"...Technical issues," she eventually decided. Rewind seemed too disappointed to be suspicious.

"So... no master copies for me to look at?"

"Not this time. But I'll make it up to you with a new set of lenses for your spark day, okay?"

And just like that, Rewind was nodding hard enough to almost snap his neck cables. Strongarm was struggling not to be reminded of a much smaller Sideswipe, despite the aching similarities. The turbopuppy optics, glossa tripping over the desperate need to know anything and everything, the oh-so obvious infatuation... Primus, did she act like this around _him_? Before she could cringe at trying to remember, Eject finally pointed out the electriphant in the room.

"Why're you dressed up like a Kalos Knights cheerleader?" He'd been squinting up at her for Primus knows how long, as if daring Fixit to blink while under such scrutiny. No wonder the poor Minicon was so relieved when Rosanna stepped in.

"Eject, don't be rude! This is Strongarm, and Steve." The latter of them seemed more fascinated with the array of blank screens than anything else, but he was courteous enough to wave at the introduction. "They're friends," Rosanna continued, "here to see your mother. Speaking of which, we're in a bit of a hurry but we'll be back to say bye. Stay out of trouble for me until then, Rewind!"

She'd knelt down to give the request, and poor Rewind seemed hopeful for a kiss (presumably on the cheek considering his mouth was covered by an orange plate) only to meet empty air as Rosanna went to the door. Once again Strongarm simply followed, but when Steve tried to leave he ended up with a jealous Minicon clamped onto his leg.

"Keep your mitts off Rosanna unless you want a solar system full of pain!" Rewind hissed up at him as soon as Rosanna was outside the doorway. Strongarm had full view though, and choked back laughter at the sight of the drone left paralysed by the glaring Minicon.

"W-What? But I didn't do anything!" Steve tried to hop forwards, but he seemed too scared of losing another limb to go any further.

"You better not have, or else!" Rewind seemed content enough to let go after the threat, but he kept glaring after Steve until he finally fled to the corridor outside.

"They seem nice," Strongarm said through a giggle-strained voice as she climbed the stairs behind Rosanna, knowing that if she looked behind her she'd burst into laughter at the sight of Steve's terror.

"That's when they're not hopped up on Engex... Vibes likes to spoil them." Rosanna alighted at the top of the stairs, not at all phased by the dramatic promotion from drab military-grade grey walls to the star studded murals that lined the entire top floor. Most were celebrities that Strongarm didn't recognise, but the shifting neon colours were enough to make her stare.

"She and Blaster... are they the only ones living on this moon?" she asked, not noticing Vibes' appearance behind a bank of vinyl mixers and crossfades until she answered.

"It's not as quiet as you'd think." Vibes jumped over the wall of equipment while Strongarm tried to hide how her spark jumped in shock. "The planet we orbit gives out these waves from the core, and when they hit the gas they make these jammin' sounds for Blaster to use! Anything we need like fuel or equipment we just get from the inner planets... sometimes Blaster threatens to leave the kids behind." She scowled at the absence of her sparkmate, unable to properly scold him, but got over it with a shrug as she seated herself. "So, to what do we owe the pleasure, Rosie? I assume you're not just here for the boys."

Rosanna sat herself next to her friend, with Steve and Strongarm aside her. Even with a deep vent, it was clear she had no idea what to say. "There's... been a situation. On Velocitron. I don't know how much of it will get out in public, but..."

As Rosanna explained slowly, Vibes' shifting expression and wilting antennae made it clear that it was just as hard for her to hear as it was for Rosanna to say. "...That signal? The same one that kept giving you those… dizzy spells?" Vibes asked quietly.

Rosanna could only nod with her hands folded in her lap, not seeing Vibes lunge forwards to embrace her tightly.

"Oh, Rosie, sweetie... I'm so sorry. I could have tried getting it out if I'd known-"

"It's okay, Vibes. Really. If not even medics could find it, then… there wasn't much you could do," Rosanna soothed, patting her friend's hand as she pulled away. Despite her struggle in letting it out, the singer seemed much lighter now that the ordeal weighed a little less on her spark. She turned to Strongarm with a tiny smile, and it was a few nanoklicks before Strongarm realised she was waiting for her to speak.

"We want to help her just as much as you, Vibes," she said. "If you can't get that thing out, can you trace the signal's source?"

Vibes fixed Strongarm with a raised eyeridge, a smug smirk tugging at her mouth. "Honey, I could trace white noise from a black hole. Just lemme at that thing and I'll break it down like Prowl at a party."

With Rosanna moved into what looked like a recording studio, Vibes spent a long while digging through her helm. All Strongarm and Steve could do was hold the singer's hand and pray that her trust was well-placed.

"Scrap... looks like whatever fragger did this to you modified the link to your audio sensors and ALU. It's gonna be tricky finding the exact signal, but if I look back far enough... aha! Heavily encrypted transmission sent not too long ago. Looks suspicious to me."

"Can you decrypt it?" Strongarm asked, trying not to get queasy even with her optics firmly averted.

"Let's see... damn, it's locked up harder than a hibernating Insecticon. But give me a few klicks, I should at least be able to get a clear read of the first frequency band." Those few klicks were made longer with Rosanna's tight and anxious grip, but soon enough Vibes emerged with a console in her hand (and a tube leading from it to where Strongarm absolutely did not want to think about).

"Looks like it came from a transmission relay..." Vibes peered closer at the device in her hand. "Near Junkion. Beyond that, the signal is too weak to find."

"Junkion?" Strongarm repeated with a frown. "Never heard of it."

"I have!" Steve piped up. "Meg- I mean... my boss called it the landfill of the galaxy. It used to be one of the first colonies before the Golden Age ended and it got abandoned."

Steve's enthusiasm did not rub off on Strongarm. "So our next stop is a dump? Can't wait."

Vibes only huffed as she went back to set Rosanna right again. "Hope you're tryin' to find the glitchspawn that did this to Rosie. Give 'em a free vocaliser removal from me."

"Bet it was Soundwave!" Blaster called out from somewhere, close enough that he could eavesdrop but not be seen, and Vibes didn't even seem surprised.

"Sweetie, Soundwave hasn't been seen for the past two decades!" she informed him, just as he appeared from underneath a DJ table.

"You think that'll stop him?! You don't know what's he's doin' with those freaky deaky tentacreepies!" He wiggled his digits menacingly, making ghost noises while his sparkmate tried her best to ignore him as she locked Rosanna's helm back up.

"You should get going, he'll be like this for a good few breems now that he's got started..."

Indeed, the ghost noises continued as they made for the stairs, only for their escape to be blocked by Rewind standing at the top.

"You're leaving already, Rosie?" Even the blink of his helm's camera skipped in sadness. "Aw, but I wanted to show you the new show compilation I made!" He held up a tiny data drive while the rest of his frame sagged, not even picking up when Rosanna approached him.

"I can take it with me," she offered. "And I'll watch it as soon as I can, promise. You know they mean a lot to me." She took the drive from his hand, saw that he wasn't about to perk up soon, and finally gave his cheek the kiss he'd been waiting for.

"Hey, you're still grounded, young mech!" Not even Blaster's fatherly anger could dull the light beaming from Rewind's optics as he seemed to faint back downstairs, floating on whatever fantasy had just been fulfilled.

At that point, it was downright impossible to ignore Strongarm's own pining. Despite everything, despite the distance and difference between them... she cared about Sideswipe, enough so that she told the other two to go on to the ship while she marched back to the studio and the ghost noises within.

"Blaster, before we go... do you mind if I send a long range message? To Earth?"

Blaster glanced up at her, finally ceasing his Necrobot impression, not at all as reluctant as he should have been to initiate comms with a blacklisted planet. "Go ahead, just tune your comm to the amplifier over there. I have the left aerial pointed there to get the radio talk shows."

"He's lying, he secretly likes the human songs," Vibes called over.

"I-It's just for research, I swear!"

"Is that why you downloaded Nicki Minaj's entire discography?"

"RE. SEARCH."

Strongarm smiled at the two mates jabbing each other behind her, faced with yet another reminder of Sideswipe. But this one wasn't as spark-warming... it only reminded her of what stupid little thing had sent her away from him. She couldn't go back to him yet... but at least she could hear his voice. At least she could still remember his comm frequency.

 **xx**

"Let me get to the bottom of your complete and utter failure, Reflector." Airachnid spoke slowly enough to make each sigh of disappointment a dagger thrown down the commline. "You did not assist Flip Sides in retrieving the Kamuicon _and_ you did not get a tracking signal on her, yet you had time to take _pictures?!_ " Her fist smashed the datapad underneath it, turning the two femmes pictured into a broken web of glass. Straxus tried to not look too closely at the one he once called his sparkmate under her sharpest talon.

" _W-w-we're sorry, Mistress, we... we were ambushed! By a Corvicon! We couldn't act without blowing our cover! We... we'll do better next time..."_ Spectro was the only one of his brothers coherent enough to plead- or stupid enough to, dependent purely on who was listening to him. Unfortunately for all three of them, it was Airachnid listening.

"You assume that there will _be_ another chance." She didn't wait for them to start weeping again before closing the line and assuring their mutual dooms. Straxus couldn't help feeling sorry for them, the only one present with a sliver of a spark left to care.

"Go easy on them, Airachnid, it was their first outing as a group," he said, watching the spider sink down from the force of the sigh in her vents.

"I suppose... I'll only have _one_ of them melted down for parts when they get back," she reasoned, rubbing a set of talons against her forehead and sweeping the broken datapad to the floor with the other. "I ask you, how hard is it to defeat ONE weakling Autobot barely older than a teenspark?!"

Again Straxus found himself looking at Firestar's shattered portrait more than the femme beside her, not surprised that she was still beautiful after all these centuries. Airachnid at least didn't seem impatient for an answer, and he gave his best attempt at one to stop the Fibers coiled around her whipping together like angry snakes.

"I never paid much attention to Knockout at that age," he confessed. "He was always out wasting fuel doing laps around the planet. But if there's one thing I learned from him, it's that youth makes a bot stronger than they should be… more confident. More reckless. They think they're invincible until they get caught." He brought himself next to her throne as he spoke, eyeing the long red cords hanging glittering from the ceiling, like drapes of entrails. "Add in Life Fibers to the formula and you have a very unpredictable force to deal with… you were a teenspark once, Airachnid."

She seemed amused at the suggestion, hiding her smirk behind claws. "What makes you think that?"

"Techno-organics can't be born from the Well."

"So they can't… what does that matter?"

"I'm curious if you felt the same way at that age."

She still held claws over her mouth, but not even a cage of razors could slice through a thick current of laughter, so slightly bordering on mockery. "My dear Straxus… I've never needed to _think_ I was invincible. When my spark fully bloomed, I knew it as a fact." And Straxus knew she wasn't lying.

"Even so… it's already clear that this Strongarm is a much bigger threat than I first thought. As if I didn't already have enough to deal with." Airachnid let her legs dangle over her servo rests, weary from the weight of her own ego. Yet Straxus wouldn't have changed her for the galaxy... or indeed the universe she put herself in the center of. He was easy prey to a very specific kind of femme, but he tried not to think of it as he brushed the broken datapad aside with his ped.

"What would you have us do, my Mistress?" he asked. Airachnid seemed to consider all her options at once, each one suspended in front of her so temptingly, but in the end the one she chose was most obvious to anyone who knew her and was still left alive by the experience.

"...Get me Tarn's frequency."


	28. Music Sounds Better With You

_After two long years, the hiatus is finally over! For how long? I can't say, but hopefully for a few months at least. With my other main fic finally over and done with I can completely devote my attention to this one (though there are still a few others in the pipeworks that I might shift focus to as time goes on)._

 _I have made some changes to earlier chapters over the hiatus, mostly just clearing them up and making some small additions. The biggest changes have been;_

 _Knockout's scene with Strongarm; instead of him giving her datapads with information on them, Fixit manages to steal one that they hack into. It holds some secret info that they've yet to uncover, but which will show up later on._

 _Steeljaw's current base has been changed from the Crown City Dam to the abandoned steel mill (since silly me didn't know that when Underbite joined the gang they ended up having to flee the dam…)_

 _The circumstances around Rosanna's Trepan Trigger have been slightly retconned- she's always known that she's had It, and it has been activated before. Due to how deeply its embedded in her processor, no one was able to detect it and likewise no one knows how to remove it without causing serious damage. So, she's stuck with it._

 _I've tried to plan ahead as much as I can manage so future retcons aren't necessary, but I can't promise there won't be more changes down the line. I admit that this fic is very ambitious with a lot of different factions and plot lines going on, most of which haven't shown up yet, and I can only do my best to tie it all together effectively._

 **xx**

It was a rare moment that found Sideswipe not swamped by the karma of chores, thanks to Bumblebee refusing to believe he didn't let Twirl escape (regardless of the fact that he was right not to believe it). Even now he was just finishing up a good few breems worth of sweeping around the Alchemor, a job that Fixit had always insisted on doing himself, when his comm unit pealed beside his groaning vocaliser.

"Primus dammit, Bee, I'd be finished a lot sooner if you didn't keep-!" All complaint ceased when he noticed the summons wasn't from Bee's unit, or indeed from anyone on Earth. The broom in his hand fell away from his frozen fingers, hitting the ground a thousand light years away as he swallowed his shallow vents, and slowly realised with an immense fear that she was waiting for him to speak.

" _Sideswipe? You there?"_ Hearing her voice again, echoing so close to his helm as if she was standing right beside him. He had to check to make sure that she wasn't, whirling left and right until he was certain he was alone. He couldn't tell if she was still angry, but he rarely ever could. The fact that she wasn't contacting the Alchemor's salvaged long-range communicator only told him that she wanted to talk to him and him alone.

"...H-Hey, you," he eventually got out, unsure if he'd actually said it aloud until he heard a very muffled gasp of laughter. No matter how hard Strongarm tried, she could never hide that sound from him.

 _"You keeping out of trouble?"_

For once, he actually was. Ever since the Twirl incident, he'd barely been allowed outside the junkyard without someone to watch him. That was always Strongarm's job, but even when she wasn't around she still seemed to take it seriously.

"That's a bold question coming from the one on a galactic Decepti-Hunt," he quipped, still trying to figure out why she was talking to him, or at least why she was only talking and not yelling.

But she wasn't talking now. Maybe she _had_ said something and he hadn't been paying attention? Primus had finally given him a chance to make up with her, and there he was zoning out and wasting it! Quickly, frantically, he scrambled to fill the awkward silence before she hung up.

"Uh, speaking of your little galaxy-wide adventure… nice to hear you're still alive. And Fixit too, I'd assume... how the Pit are you calling me, anyway?" He was far from an expert on comm systems, but even he knew that connecting to something as small as a comm link from so far away required some serious hardware, the kind only used during the war.

" _Let's just say I hijacked someone else's equipment_ ," she confessed.

"All just to talk to me? Aw, you _do_ care." Sideswipe thought he could get away with that, but he immediately realised his mistake as the line went cold. For a nanoklick he thought she actually _had_ hung up in disgust, but before he could start bashing his helm with the broom she spoke again. No longer the unlikely friend, just the police officer again.

" _Well…_ _next time you see Bee, tell him we're heading to Junkion. I'll comm him directly when we get another update_."

"Junkion?" Sideswipe didn't know much of anything beyond Cybertron's orbit, but he got an immediate idea of what a planet with a name like that would have in store for her. "You gonna go dumpster diving for Airachnid?"

" _Something like that. Seems like we're being taken to all the colonies- first Velocitron, then…"_ She trailed off, and Sideswipe had a vague fear as to why as soon as she mentioned the speed planet he so hated. He'd thought that fear was just a silly shadow of paranoia, a force of habit that he could never quite shake off from the years of trying to hide from who lived there. He'd thought that, until Strongarm spoke again.

" _That reminds me,"_ she said. _"We ran into your dad."_

No matter how casually, how nonchalant she sounded, nothing could have made Sideswipe's spark drop so suddenly.

"W-What? I-I don't… I-" He had the fleeting urge to deny everything and act innocent, but even he was smart enough to know that it would be futile. She already knew, likely straight from the ex-Con's mouth. So all he could do was sigh and accept the fallout.

"You mean... Knockout?"

 _"The very same_."

"...There goes all the effort I put into hiding it, then." And so much effort gone to waste- faking his records so he was listed as Well-born, demanding that his twin do the same, never once talking about a family that he wished never existed. Most didn't even know he had a brother; it was so much simpler to just not mention any of them.

While he was busy figuring out just how much of his life was ruined now, Strongarm decide to interrupt.

" _I'm not gonna tell Bumblebee, if that's what you're worried about_."

Sideswipe blinked, wondering if he heard her right, wondering if he was even speaking to Strongarm in the first place. He wouldn't have been the first mech to get glitches in his comm unit. But, on the off chance he wasn't hallucinating, he responded.

"…Really? That's... not like you. You sure this is the same Strongarm who left?"

" _What's that supposed to mean_?" Most mechs would have backed down when she spoke like that, but Sideswipe heard it enough times to sense when there was humour hidden underneath. And he could hear scores of it.

"I mean... well, let's be honest, you're always gonna be the snitch of the group," he told her, "even when you're light years away."

" _I went through four years of academy learning how to be a snitch, Sides. It's kinda my job, especially when you're doing something you know you shouldn't be. But… I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping some things to yourself. It's no one else's business where you come from."_ There was a pause, filled with Sideswipe still skeptically wondering what her end goal was.

" _If it helps… I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of. It's not like you had anything to do with what your sire's done._ "

It was the exact same thought Sideswipe had tried to remember all his life. Hearing it from someone else, out loud and not just as a mantra in his own head, did help. More than perhaps she'd ever truly know.

"…Not just my sire, " he confessed, to the one bot he never thought he'd confess anything to. "Both of my parents were 'Cons, actually. Me and my brother, both dumped on the wrong side of the war-"

" _I didn't know you had a brother,"_ she cut in. He let it slip without hesitation or thought, like it was an tribute to himself he'd been practising over and over, so he didn't even notice until Strongarm pointed it out.

"Not many do know," he said. "Count yourself lucky."

" _If… you don't mind me prying further… what happened to your carrier?"_

"Not like I remember much about her," Sideswipe admitted. In truth, he didn't remember anything about his parents during the war, but at least in not knowing Dragstrip he had no reason to hate her. "Apparently she was one of the Stunticons, and she died during a fight with Superion."

" _The Stunticons? You mean the team that made up_ Menasor _?"_ All of the old Decepticon gestalts inspired awe, even from the Autobots who had to go against them. Strongarm was no exception.

"The very same… I think she was his arm. Tried to smash a fist against Superion, but he flew out the way so she got slammed into a starscraper. The whole thing came down and crushed her. That's how I heard it, at least." Most mechs would have been less casual describing their carrier's supposed death, but to Sideswipe it was just a story. He didn't have any memories, anything to miss, not even a face to mourn.

Then he realised he'd zoned out again, and rushed to make sure Strongarm didn't hang up just yet. "Anyway, uh… thanks for not telling, Strongarm. Especially considering... with what happened-"

 _"Don't mention it,_ " she cut in with a sigh, and he briefly wondered if he made another mistake in even mentioning , for once, this wasn't him trying to fix something he'd broken.

" _I'm... I'm ready to forget it ever happened, if you are_."

Not many bots had the chance to start over. Sideswipe knew how lucky he was, not only to speak to her but to have someone like her in the first place. "I was ready from day one. I was just waiting for you to decide."

" _We have a deal, then_." To her, at least, it was as simple as that, and Sideswipe wasn't going to argue with it. Instead he was thinking of how not to ruin the blank slate he'd just been given, and he didn't get very far until he heard something incredibly, impossibly rare.

 _"I miss you_."

In all the time they'd known each other, all the missions stuck together and problems he'd caused that she had to fix, they'd never once been far apart long enough for them to miss each other. If either of them ever did, they never would have admitted it. At least, that's what Sideswipe had always thought.

It caught him so off-guard, both the confession and the realisation of just how much he hated her absence, that he almost forgot to return it. "I… I miss you, too. Try and stay safe out there."

"... _No promises_." She was gone before he could tell if she was joking or not, and he spent a long while trying to figure it out. By the time he realised he wasn't alone in the ship, he hadn't make any progress.

"Strongarm doin' okay?"  
Sideswipe jumped so high that he almost embedded himself in the ceiling, shaking more dust for him to sweep up from the walls. "Dammit, Grimlock, don't sneak up on me like that!"

The Dinobot shrugged in apology. "Sorry. Bee sent me to check that you weren't slacking off."

"I'm not-!" Sideswipe was mid protest as he ducked to retrieve his broom, somehow thinking he could keep up the illusion of getting stuff done. "Okay, I _might_ have taken a break, but it was for an important call! And I'm going _right_ back to work! See? I could clean this whole ship in the time it takes to race around it!" He furiously dragged the brush backwards over the floor as an example, expecting Grimlock to be gone by the time he reached the end of the hallway.

Instead, the Dinobot sensed a challenge in Sideswipe's boast. "You think so? Alright, see you back here!" He transformed into his alt mode and went pounding down the corridor that Sideswipe had just swept, clanging footsteps far too loud for him to have heard the mech's protests.

"Wait, Grimlock, I didn't mean-!" The Dinobot had already disappeared around the corner, leaving behind a carpet of outside dirt and flakes of rust dislodged from the walls. And he was sure the rest of the ship would look the same by the time Grimlock was done.

"Should'a just snuck onboard that ship before it left… could'a been off on Junkion having the time of my life, but _nooooo_ , Bumblebee needs _someone_ to clean up…" As Sideswipe put his aching servos back in service, he starkly realised why Fixit never liked anyone going inside his ship.

 **xx**

Strongarm hadn't exactly kept her voice down as she spoke to Sideswipe, but it was still a shock to hear Blaster just behind her as she ended the link.

"Aww, young love… remember when we were like that, Vibes?"

At the other end of the studio, Vibes popped up from behind a wall of speakers to throw her sparkmate a narrow glare. "The way I remember, you only ever called me when you were horn-" The speakers in front of her erupted into noise before she could finish, almost knocking her right back behind them.

"Huh? What was that, baby? Can't hear you, you're gonna have to speak up!" Blaster had to yell over the music that he was turning up even louder. Vibes managed to land a spanner right on his head before Strongarm's audios shortened out, and he promptly switched it off to avoid a rain of steel.

"Take it from me, Strongarm." Vibes looped an arm over her shoulder, having to stretch to reach up that far (somehow Strongarm had only just noticed how small she was- compared to Rosanna she had seemed taller). "From what I heard, you should keep that boy of yours around," she advised. "Most mechs don't bother to pick up from so far away." Despite her size, Vibes' motherly smile confirmed just how much older she was than Strongarm as she patted the officer's chest and removed her servo.

"Good luck with your little bounty hunt," she said, suddenly fixing Strongarm with a warning glare. "But if _anything_ else happens to Rosie-"

"Not on my watch," Strongarm pledged, doubtful that such a diva Minicon could get herself in any more danger. "I promise."

With that reassurance, Vibes let her harsh expression melt away. "I'll hold ya' to that." She held out her hand towards Strongarm, digits in the shape of a blaster as she cocked it and let it fire back with a flick of her wrist. Whether it was supposed to be a threat or some strange farewell, Strongarm didn't feel like sticking around to find out.

"Sorry for the delay, Fixit," she said as she descended the stairs. "I promise we'll head right back to the ship."

" _It's fine… don't worry about it."_ Fixit barely made himself known throughout her entire exchange with Sideswipe, despite how awkward she still felt with him listening in.

"You say that a lot," she pointed out, wondering if she really should be worrying. Before she could think of pressing Fixit further, a whisper caught her audios from somewhere far below to her left.

"Psst, lady with the weird armour!" She turned her head, and saw Rewind peeking out from a doorway with a hand inexplicably shielding his mouth, as if the plate covering it wouldn't muffle his voice enough. "Quit talking to yourself and get over here!" he hissed. Strongarm was very tempted to ignore him, but eventually rolled her optics and knelt down near him.

"Shouldn't you be in your room?" she asked, not bothering to hide the snark in her deadpan. As with most teensparks, Rewind was too focused on himself to even notice it.  
"Listen, wherever you and Rosanna are going, you _need_ to take me with you," he said, as if he was passing on crucial intelligence to win a war. "I'm gonna be stuck in here for at least the next two decacycles and it's gonna drive me crazy!"

"And why should I care?" Strongarm asked, instantly throwing Rewind for a loop. He obviously wasn't used to being denied, at least not by femmes. Vibes really _did_ spoil him.

"Uh… I can be useful!" he insisted. "You need a documenter? Video editor? Mobile security camera? I'm your guy! Three bots in one with half the space!" He finished his pitch with a flourish of his servos, as if it would convince Strongarm.

"No thanks."

"What about a janitor?" he tried as she rose to her peds. "Fuel fetcher? I could look after Rosie's pets!"

"Look, kid." She placed her hands on her hips, knowing it would make her look slightly bigger. This wasn't the first time she'd lectured bots several cycles younger than her. "This isn't some kind of tour or vacation or whatever you think it is," she told him. "It's a dangerous mission that Rosanna just happened to get caught up in. You'll just get in the way." She turned away before he could plead his case any further, and because he forgot to keep whispering he very swiftly drew the voice of his father down from the stairs.

"Rewind, you better be back in your room by the time I get down there or I'll send the Sparkstalker after you!" Strongarm heard small peds frantically dashing away from her, and knew she wouldn't have any hitchhikers trailing behind her as she made her lonely way back to the ship.

She wasn't greeted at the loading ramp, nor along any of the corridors as she headed for the control room. Everyone else was gathered there, huddled around a screen embedded in the console that showed an ominous scene; a reporter in front of the venue that held Velocity Vogue, now in daylight and showing the scars of the fight between Strongarm and Flip Sides.

" _...here in Talatona, where Rosanna was last seen. Her managers have insisted that nothing strange occurred during her scheduled appearance, and those in attendance have refused to comment. Other witnesses claim to have seen Rosanna boarding a decommissioned Class B transport vessel with a team of five bots, only one of which who has been identified. Local authorities have yet to declare her disappearance as a botnapping, as it seems she went willingly with her captors and no ransom demands have been made. The two key witnesses are travel officers who claim to have witnessed the perpetrators when they arrived on planet."_

The screen cut to an unfortunately familiar femme- the one who had tried to have them all detained the second they set ped on Velocitron, still talking like her vocaliser was permanently stuck on fast-forward.

" _Yeah, I remember that one with the horns! He acted like he was on some kind of boosters! I wouldn't be surprised at all if he kidnapped her, smuggled her into the cargo bay with the rest of his narcotics! I would have detained him right away if it wasn't for my_ superior _interfering!"_

Either she was done speaking or whoever was behind the camera just got sick of hearing her; the view cut again to reveal Blurr, still looking like he hadn't fully recovered from his run-in with Thunderhoof.

" _I, uh… I don't remember anyone like that coming through. Must have slipped by registration, somehow!"_ He shrugged, but Lickety-Split barged in again and seized the microphone held in front of him.

" _You [BEEP]ing liar, Blurr! You're the one that let them through in the first place! Were you_ helping _them?! Were you trying to get more red energon so you could cheat on another race?!"_ Now she was almost bludgeoning him with the microphone, demanding that he confess.

" _Okay, okay! I did get_ one _name… Strongarm. She's one of the bots who left with Rosanna, now would you stop-!"_ No sooner did he just brand Strongarm as a botnapper, her spark sinking so low that she thought it would fall out her chest, did Lickety start assaulting the camera with her face.

" _See?_ He's _the one who let a bunch of criminals through,_ I _did my job exactly as I should have!"_ As she threw an accusing finger back towards him, poor Blurr made the smartest decision of his life.

" _I'm breaking up with you, Lickety."_

The screen went blank, as Wheeljack rose from his chair with servos stretched high as if in celebration.

"Fantastic, now we're _officially_ criminals!" he announced, lowering his servos to press tightly against his forehelm as he groaned and sank back down.

"Welcome to the club," Thunderhoof said, knocking back a cube of energon as Filch tried to peck at it. Steve didn't look at anyone, threading his digits together tightly as if he didn't know what else to do.

As for Rosanna, she clearly had no idea what to do either. She didn't even seem to register what they'd all just seen.

"I told you all, this isn't a big deal! You're not criminals cause I _know_ I'm not kidnapped!" She said it as if it was the obvious answer to all their problems, obviously not even understanding what their problem was.

"But _they_ don't know that!" Strongarm sighed, matching her father's groan as he smacked his helm against the nearest hard surface. "Look, Rosanna, can't you make some kind of statement to whoever's in charge of you? It's gonna be difficult finding Airachnid if we get arrested the next time we try to land somewhere."

Rosanna stared at her, thought for a long moment, then pouted as she marched over to the comm panel, putting a tune in her voice as she muttered. "I swear, ever since I came out of Linkage I've had bots wanting to watch me every day, _constantly_ checking up on me…"

Usually Strongarm would have just dismissed a diva being a diva, but one particularly lilted word caught her attention.

"…Linkage? What's that?"

At the comm panel she seemed to think about answering, but just shook her helm. "Never mind. It's a Minicon thing."

Strongarm raised an eyeridge, turning an optic to the other resident Minicon. "You know what that is, Fixit?"

" _Basically, it's… well, it's our version of the Well of All Sparks that Micronus made for us._ "

Thunderhoof, who had been trying to stop Filch from swallowing the now empty energon cube, now snapped his attention towards Strongarm. "Wait, wait, you sayin' Minis don't come from the Well?!" he asked, as if his entire perception of reality was being challenged. Most mechs looked like that when they were proven wrong about something.

" _Not usually, no,"_ Fixit answered. _"Like Seekers, we're all bond-born in a way. Well, almost all of us…"_ Fixit averted his optics as he trailed off, leaving Thunderhoof to rethink most of his life while Strongarm once again wondered how much her Minicon was still hiding from her.

"Huh. That's… interesting. How come I've never heard of it?" she asked.

" _Like Rosanna said, it's a Minicon thing. It just never really comes up if you're not one."_

Strongarm still had her suspicions about Fixit, but she kept them to herself. If Linkage was really anything else other than an alternate Well, then Rosanna wouldn't have even mentioned it.

Speaking of whom; she was dusting her hands as she returned to the main control hub, as if she'd just completed an ordeal. "There, it's done. They're not gonna be happy that I'm bailing on my tour, but frag 'em. I deserve a break."

Wheeljack still lay slumped in his chair, having perfected the hangover look after so much practice, and he swung his helm towards Rosanna with narrow optics. "Hey, Princess. You said you've got eyes on you all the time. So just how the Pit did someone manage to get you to a mnemosurgeon in the first place with no one noticing?"

Rosanna blinked at him, pouting again. "How should I know? I see hundreds of bots a day on tour; armour fitters, technicians, medics, I can't keep track of what they're all doing! Do you know how much effort it takes to look this good? Well, obviously you don't."

Wheeljack balled his fist, but decided she wasn't worth even sitting up straight in his chair. "All I'm saying is, you'd think someone would notice if a bunch of needles were poking around their processor. How do we know _this_ you isn't the fake one, made just to fool us? If you're really workin' both sides, how do we know you're not just spying on us? For all we know you could'a just made a call right to Airachnid, or whoever you're really working with!" His growing anger pulled him out of his slump so he could properly accuse Rosanna, who was now fighting to clear her optics before she broke down in tears.

"Dad, stop! You're upsetting her!" Strongarm threw a glare at her sire as she went to Rosanna, her wide thumb helping to wipe her optics clear much more than her own small digits managed.

"I… I-I don't remember it happening, I swear..." If Wheeljack was right and it was really all an act, Rosanna did far too good a job at it. Strongarm had learned to trust her instincts when there was nothing else to trust, and there was nothing that told her this sobbing, lost popstar way in over her head was really part of some kind of underground Decepticon network. If she was, why go to Vibes? Why give them a clue to help track down Airachnid?

With Strongarm soothing her, Rosanna eventually calmed down. "Okay. I admit, I wasn't… entirely honest… I _have_ felt the Trigger before." She sniffed, screwing her optics closed and forcing herself to stand straight.

"All I know is… one day, out of nowhere, I got this urge to… to steal. I was in a hotel room at the time. I must have stuffed my subspace with everything not nailed down, and when we left it was too late to give it all back. It was like someone else was controlling me, and I only realised it after it passed. That was the first time… I swear I didn't know what it was. I went to medics, psychologists, I even had Vibes take a look. But they all said it was just a fluke. A processor glitch. No one knew what had happened, and I doubt they even believed me. No one ever found the Trigger… not even when it kept happening." She shivered, wrapping her servos tightly around her frame.

"…I think those moments were test runs. Slowly making me do worse and worse things, seeing what I could get away with until…" She gulped, slowly sinking to the ground with her back against the large console looming over her. "It was never _that_ bad. Never so bad that I… that I _hurt_ someone…"

There was a tap of tiny peds as Ramhorn patted over to her, welcoming her hand along his head. Nook was there as well, scurrying into her lap with his tail wrapped around a leg. Tears still filled her optics, but she no longer sobbed.

"You didn't hurt me, Rosanna," Strongarm said gently. "If anything, _I_ hurt you more. Don't beat yourself up so much, okay?"

Rosanna only patted her pets for a few moments, but she eventually nodded. With that, Strongarm felt a little safer in leaving her to confront her sire.

"So, Dad, unless you want to accuse the only actual Decepticons here of double crossing us, I'd like to get out of here now."

Wheeljack looked at her, a look that she couldn't decipher, and said nothing as he shrugged and fired up the engines. The moon below them, still blindingly brilliant, faded away as they shot into the cold blackness above. With nothing interesting to do Thunderhoof soon got up and went for his room, leaving Filch behind to chew on whatever she wanted. Strongarm placed herself in the co-pilot, eyeing Steve as he lurked in the corner, trying to inch towards Rosanna. At some point he summoned the courage to go over to her in a single stride, seating himself opposite her.

"I… think I know how you feel, Rosanna," he said quietly, though not enough so that Strongarm couldn't hear. "Like you're just… following someone else's orders, not knowing what you're really doing. I get that."

She blinked, though her optics were dry. "Did _you_ hurt someone?" she asked.  
"I've… done a lot worse than just hurt," he admitted. "I never really thought there was anything wrong with it at the time. It was like… I wasn't thinking at all. Everything I did, everything I said and planned, it was like it was all… pre-programmed."

Rosanna cocked her helm curiously, and was about to say something else until a sudden, mocking laugh all the way from Wheeljack cut her off.

"That's cause it _was_ pre-programmed, you dumbaft." He put the ship on autopilot just to tear down Steve some more. "Drones like you were built in factories, mass produced durin' the war to do nothin' but kill, kill, and kill some more. And you were a damn sight more loyal than most Decepticons cause you _literally_ couldn't think of betrayal." He scoffed again, finding the whole situation so amusing, but his smile faded when Steve remained silent.

"…Didn't you know that?" Wheeljack asked.

Steve shook his helm slowly, tried to pull it close to his body. "…I-I don't understand. I don't… remember…"

"Haven't you noticed that… you don't have a spark?" Wheeljack pressed further, genuinely astounded by the drone's lack of self awareness- even more so than a drone should have.

"I… I-I… no. I... guess I never did." If metal could deflate, Steve practically collapsed in on himself as a cruel knowledge suddenly flooded him. Before Wheeljack could dump any more, Strongarm yanked on her sire's servo.

"Dad, can I have a word with you outside?" Pushing the request through gritted denta made it one that was not to be disobeyed. He was dragged to the door outside the control room, and Strongarm had to struggle not to throw him through the exit. With the room sealed away, she didn't try keeping her voice quiet.

"What the Pit is wrong with you?! Why would you say something like that, even to an old Decepticon?!"

For once, Wheeljack didn't seem to understand why his daughter was so furious. "What'cha getting' angry for? I'm just sayin' what he is, he's a drone! One of thousands and thousands of mindless machines who have helped kill even more Autobots than Megatron himself did!" When that explanation only made her frown burrow even deeper, he sighed and dragged a hand down his face.

"Look, Strongarm, I don't have anything against him cause he worked for the 'Cons. But _only_ cause he was literally doing what he was made for. And that's all he is, a _product_ of the war that killed almost everyone I knew. You're way too young to understand-"

He was gesturing with his hands in desperation, but Strongarm slapped them away. "Don't you pull that slag with me, I _hate_ when you say that!"

"I'm serious, Strongarm." He in turn swatted away the digit she brandished in his face. "The only drones you've seen are the _salvaged_ ones. The cleaners, the builders, they're what keep Cybertron ticking because when they're given a job they know exactly how to do it. Now imagine if one of them knew _exactly_ how to kill, could and would do it without a second thought, without any hint of remorse. _That's_ what Vehicons are. What _he_ is." He pointed towards the window set in the door, but Strongarm didn't follow it.

"…Well, he's clearly not that anymore," she insisted. "You can't tell me that just cause he doesn't have a spark that he's not alive. Humans don't have sparks, does that make them inferior to us?"  
"They're not the same thing, Strongarm!"

"But I'm right! A spark doesn't make you good, and programming doesn't make you bad. Maybe… after all this time, he's found a way to escape what he's been told to do. Maybe his processor doesn't run it anymore. Whatever it is… I just can't believe that he's no better than the weapons you used to kill Decepticons."

Something about that sentiment struck a nerve node, and Wheeljack almost couldn't respond. But he recovered, frowning deeply until he realised he wasn't going to get anywhere with her.

"…Alright. _Maybe_. But just you remember, he is _not_ like you and me. He might learn how to act like us, speak like us, but he's nothing more than a machine. I'm only telling you this so you're not hurt when he remembers what he is, and it takes him over again." When she had nothing more to say, he left her standing outside the door as he slumped back into his pilot's seat, even heavier than he usually did.

Through the door's window, Strongarm watched Steve as he let Nook climb his leg, making Rosanna laugh as her pet dangled there from his tail. She hoped he had a short memory.


	29. One Mech's Junk

"I say we use him to lure the Autobots out. Then, when they're distracted, we dive in and take over the Alchemor!"

"You think they're gonna abandon the place just for one Minicon? We'd be better off using him as scrap metal. Could drain the energon right outta his fuel tanks…"

They were supposed to be out scouting for energon deposits, or at least finding somewhere to steal it from. Yet all Airazor and Divebomb seemed to care about was their daily taunting of Jetstorm. As long as it kept them out of trouble and away from their pitiful energon stockpile, Steeljaw didn't mind it. He'd yet to decide what to even do with their prisoner, other than just siphoning his fuel like Airazor was fantasizing over, but he was sure he'd find a use for him when the time came. Besides, he wasn't so interested in just ambushing the Autobots or trying to make a deal with them. His ambitions stretched far beyond this human-infested mudball they were so intent on protecting.

Fracture knew that well enough, even if he didn't quite know what exactly those ambitions were.

"I still don't quite understand what you're expecting Airachnid to do," he admitted, his back to his brats as they teased Jetstorm with half of an energon cube. "Assuming she even _is_ still alive and our little princess isn't just hallucinating." The bounty hunter threw a skeptical glance over at their other Minicon, who entertained and somehow didn't nauseate herself by watching Clampdown devour an entire girder. She clapped like an audience at a circus, as Fracture rolled his optics so they were facing Steeljaw again. It was clear that he didn't find the wolf's grin very reassuring.

"It's simple, Fracture. You said she was one of the galaxy's greatest hunters. She single-handedly wiped out entire organic ecosystems, correct?"

"Yes…?" An eyeridge quavered over his narrowed optics.

"And what is this planet completely infested with?" Steeljaw asked. As expected, Fracture quickly caught onto the implication.

"Organics…" His grin matched Steeljaw's as his eyeridges flattened to hide the knowing sparkle in his eyes.

"All we have to do is get rid of them, and Earth will be in the perfect state for our own kind of cyberforming." Steeljaw lashed his tail, excited just at the thought of it. If Cybertron refused to give his kind a home, then he'd mold a new one exactly as he desired. For all of the cities he razed and planets he'd cleansed in a hail of gunfire, not even the legendary Megatron himself had managed such a feat.

"What about the humans?" Fracture pointed out. "They're stubborn. It'll take more than one Decepticon to wipe them out."

Steeljaw had considered that, and decided that they didn't necessarily need to join the rest of their planet in extinction. "They seem smart enough to follow orders. We could keep some around as slaves, or even pets. Assuming we don't step on them."

Fracture thought for a moment, perhaps imagining a legion of terrified humans to replace his Minicons, before he let himself grin again. "For once, Steeljaw, you have a plan I can actually agree with."

Steeljaw curled his tail inwards, knowing at least this one would be loyal as long as he could deliver on his plan. When given something good enough to work towards, not even the most two-faced mech could be swayed away from it.

Now if only he could manipulate Fracture's brats so easily.

"And, as usual, your Minicons are causing a scene." Steeljaw nodded over the hunter's shoulder. Seeing the duo threatening to chew the prisoner's digits off finally spurred him to drag them back in line.

"I told you two to stay away from him." Steeljaw watched as Fracture literally bashed their helms together. "Now get back to work."

"Come on, boss, we're just tryin' to soften him up!" Airazor, or perhaps it was Divebomb, protested (Steeljaw could rarely be bothered to tell them apart). "Think of all the Autobot secrets he's got hidden in that thick helm!"

"It's not your job to go digging for them." Fracture was dragging the two away by now, to the farthest corner away from the Autobot.

"But… what if he's like that _other_ Minicon?" They both struggled, yet only one was still trying to plead. "Y'know, the one that Twirl's goin' after?"

"Trust me, he's not." Twirl must have noticed the commotion and decided that poking her olfactories into it was better than doing nothing. "Once you see a Kamuicon," she asserted, almost smugly, "you know how to pick them out."

Fracture curled his lip, relinquishing his Minicons to plant his hands on his hips and peer down at the femme who was barely bigger than them both. "You keep mentioning that word, yet you still won't tell us what the frag it means."

Twirl fluttered her useless wings, either refusing to feel intimidated or being simply incapable of it. "Because it's none of your business. You don't need to know what it is to get me off this planet." Her optics shot open wide, as she copied Fracture's pose and turned it onto Steeljaw. "Speaking of which, just when _are_ we gonna get moving already?!"

That was another issue Steeljaw had yet to fix- keeping up the lie to Twirl until she managed to get him in contact with her boss. "You need to be patient, my dear," he drawled. "Iacon wasn't built in a day."

"But I've been stuck here for over a decacycle!" She stamped out a mini-tantrum and went off to sulk somewhere before someone could explain to her that it wasn't meant to be literal. Steeljaw's tail danced in amusement; if she wasn't so annoying, she might have been worth keeping around.

With nothing else to keep him around, he was set to retire early for the day. A yawn had just left his mouth when he caught sight of Fracture being nagged by someone at his knee. One of the brats.

"Boss, wait! I, uh… might have an idea what she might be talking about. That Kamuicon-thing." He was whispering, but Steeljaw could hear him thanks to his keener audials. At the other side of the mech, his brother was shaking his helm.

"Not this again…"

Fracture ignored the groan. "What is it, Airazor?"

With his master's tone already weary, Airazor must have known he had to get it out quickly. "There's this… legend that most Minicons know. More like a sparkling story, really, about... well, it's like this. Some of us are supposed to get a lot stronger when we… _combine_ with other bots. Like what we do with you, but… well, even better than that. Usually they become armour, like the bot is _wearing_ the-" His rambling tale was stopped not by Fracture, but by Divebomb slamming a fist into his shoulder.

"Oh, come on, I first heard that story when I was barely out of Linkage! You really think any of that slag is real? It's just a stupid made-up thing meant to scare sparklings, like the Sparkstalker! And clowns!"

Airazor had been hit hard enough that his arm sagged, so he used the other one to hit right back. " _You_ were the one who recorded those two Autobots… _fusing_!" he protested in a furious hiss. "You try and tell me that it isn't a _little_ bit similar! Linkage itself is s'posed to be a giant web of whatever it is that makes those things so powerful!"

"And the Earth is supposed be Unicron's tomb, yet I don't see no giant gravestone anywhere!"

"Enough!" The Minicons' attempts at stealth was ruined by Fracture's yell of frustration. "If you're done _wasting_ my time with fairy tales, you can do as you're told and _get back to work_. Unless you _like_ not having any energon."

Both Minicons flinched from the threat, and gladly took the chance to escape before they dug an even deeper hole for themselves. As they scurried back to their corners, Fracture didn't even seem to contemplate what they'd told him.

As for Steeljaw's eavesdropping… it wasn't anything he didn't already know. Other than Twirl, he seemed to be the only one who knew for sure what Fixit was, what he was made of. But, unlike Twirl, he knew better than to go chasing after his kind. His siblings wasted enough of their lives on that, and he'd sworn long ago that he wouldn't follow them.

Not them, and not Deathsaurus.

Not anymore.

There was a growling sound that usually accompanied every thought he had like that, but it wasn't his vocaliser. It was just his tanks, indignant at being left empty for so long. Their stockpile was barely a pile now, more like a puddle of scattered cubes.

"Airazor," he called out just as the skulking mech was about to leave. "How much longer will it take to find a damn fuel source?"

"I'm Divebomb!"

"Whatever. Just get some energon before you and your brother end up getting carved open." It was a mostly empty threat, though Steeljaw's claws were itching to sink into something.

Maybe he _had_ found a use for Jetstorm.

 **xx**

Strongarm considered going back to her quarters, happy to sulk for the rest of the trip, but she quickly realised that meant leaving Steve and Wheeljack in the same room without any supervision. So, she marched back into the control room without even a glance at her sire, not even when she was forced to take the only empty seat next to him. Usually she would have been worried about him being so quiet, but for once she was grateful for the silence.

The ship thrusters devoured the light years between them and Junkion, yet it was still far too slow for her liking. She was wishing she _had_ just sulked off, considered if she could somehow will Fixit to carry her out, when Wheeljack did his usual stupid thing and tried to break the tension he'd caused.

"We should be landing soon. Might wanna make sure you've got everythin' ya' need."

"I'm not taking anything down." She still wasn't looking at him. The blank wall to her left was far too fascinating.

"What about some energon? Just in case. I even brought some lithium-isotope mix along, your favourite!"

"I don't need any fuel." Strongarm hated when he tried bribing her like that. It made her feel too much like a cop out to ruin everyone else's fun, and even more so she hated knowing that was exactly what she was. She curled deeper into her frame, retreating from the coldness of her own shoulder. Fixit shivered around her.

Wheeljack didn't even sigh in defeat. Strongarm had learned how to hold a grudge through her teen years, and she'd only gotten better at it since then. He was the one she practiced on the most, so he knew when to give up.

Unfortunately, it seemed he'd also been practicing ways to break down her grudges. It took ten klicks of almost-silence for him to figure it out. Strongarm was still studying the wall intently when he cleared his vocaliser.

"Y'know… Jazz noticed somethin' about you, before we left Velocitron. That new look Fixit has... it reminded him of Elita One for some reason."

Strongarm blinked, and in that blink she'd turned to face him again- so quickly she didn't even have time to scold herself. "Elita One? Optimus Prime's sparkmate?"

He smiled, though it was far too sad for him to be happy at finally grabbing her attention. "Not just his sparkmate. One of his most loyal commanders, and one of the best. I never got the chance to know her too well, but the first few victories we got against the Cons were all thanks to her."

Strongarm knew every single one of those victories off by spark. It wasn't mandatory reading for her Academy studies, but where else would she have learned how a single bot masterminded the entire basis for the Autobots' initial stand? Elita had Optimus by her side at the command helm, even before they had bonded, but the Prime insisted through and through that the credit was all hers. She was the kind of bot Arcee had aspired to be, the kind that all young femmes lived in the shadow of; not bitterly or jealously, but in awe of what she was and what she stood for, what she helped build for their kind.

If only she'd lived long enough to see it for herself.

"…But then she died," Strongarm said, hauling out the electriphant in the room. "Less than halfway through the war, right?"  
Wheeljack clenched his jaw, denta clamped so he didn't whistle through them. "Yeah... can't remember how, but it hit everyone hard. Even Magnus used to smile a little more when she was around."

Strongarm couldn't help but smile herself at that terrifying thought. The day Uncle Magnus ever gave anything more than a light scowl would be the day Cybertron got swallowed in a supernova. She shook her head.

"Why did I remind Jazz of her?"  
Wheeljack shrugged. "Somethin' about the way Fixit fits you, he said. I was 'bout to slap him for lookin' too closely, but it was the little changes he noticed. You've seen it too, I bet. Everything looks a little… taller, a little more streamlined." He was right about that at least, the so-called 'synchronising' had made Fixit almost comfortable to wear. She was about to ask him his opinion on it, but he was shivering even more so than before and his optics were blank, distant. He didn't seem to be listening.

"Course," Wheeljack went on, "Elita's armour was pink, so I don't know what exactly he-" The Wrecker was flung forwards as he suddenly wrenched on the engine cut-off switch. The deceleration threw Strongarm against the closed viewport, and Rosanna's pets went skidding across the floor before they ducked into the safety of their cassette modes. As for the singer herself, she and Steve were smart enough to have themselves strapped in.

Half-sank into his chair, thrown back by the inertia of a several thousand-ton ship, Wheeljack wobbled a digit out to open the viewport that his daughter was trying to peel herself off of. By the time Strongarm removed herself from the hard glass it was showing a field full of rocks, satellites, arrays, ice and, most of all, garbage. The largest specimen was right in front of them, studded with discarded metal and broken goods-gone-bad. No matter how alien it looked, all garbage looked the same.

"Phew!" Wheeljack practically sagged. "Almost nose-dived right into a trashteroid!" He laughed as if he was proud of himself, either for his quick thinking or the terrible pun.

"Yeah, real fine piloting, Dad…" Strongarm tried to wipe the imprint her face left on the port glass while Wheeljack cracked his digits and wrangled controls he clearly had no right being behind.

Safe in his seat, from Wheeljack's crazy driving if not from Wheeljack himself, Steve leaned across to whisper something at Rosanna. She nodded once, and stuck her hand up like a sparkling in school.

"Where are we again?" she asked, presumably on his behalf.

"Junkion." Wheeljack couldn't have hidden his excitement if he tried, somehow giddy at the prospect of literal junk. "Dumpster for the whole universe. If you can't find it here, it either don't exist or it ain't been around long enough. We better land before this trash traps us in orbit."

"Why do we need to land?" Rosanna asked. "We're just looking for a satellite, aren't we?"

"We don't know which one specifically, though," Wheeljack answered. "It could be in orbit, or it could be buried in an array somewhere on the ground. Even if we knew exactly which one it was, we need to know how to crack it open without breakin' what's inside. Only way to find out is to ask whoever's in charge."

Rosanna blinked, then crossed her arms defiantly. "I think I'll just stay here, thank you. Primus knows what the paparazzi would say if they saw me around a _junkyard.._."

"Uh, m-me too," Steve muttered. "Don't want someone trying to scrap me out there… being mass-produced and all."

Wheeljack shrugged, neither annoyed nor interested in Rosanna's diva lifestyle nor how he'd scarred Steve. "Fine by me. Just don't touch anything while we're gone."

Strongarm wasn't sure who of the two she trusted more behind the wheel, but she warily left him to it while she checked the comm panel. Other than some status lights, it was silent. "You'd think the comms would be lighting up by now. Not many colonies just let any tourist land where they want."

As if she wasn't already on edge enough, Wheeljack chuckled in that really dangerous way. "Baby, you really don't know much about Junkion, do you? There's a reason I always said I wanted to retire here."

Somehow, Strongarm had forgotten about that. Now Fixit wasn't the only one in the room who was terrified.

 **xx**

By the time Thunderhoof came barging in, demanding to know what had so rudely woken him up, Wheeljack had somehow found solid surface to land on that wasn't just a platform of cobbled-together trash. That's what Strongarm assumed at least, with the viewport sealed shut again.

When she actually set foot on Junkion, her ped almost going straight through a trail of rust that barely managed to resemble a path, she quickly realised that the entire planet was exactly that- a platform of trash, for trash. Even though they'd landed on one of the upper layers, mountains and towers of the stuff stretched far into the non-existent atmosphere, and even further into the distance. Scavengers crawled all over them like ants in their tunnels, scaling the deathly unstable ground as if their weight was meaningless, as if one wrong step wouldn't bury them in an avalanche of scrap. Those who weren't so casually risking their lies traversed chaotic corridors somehow carved out of the thick carpet of scrap; hauling wagons piled high with- what else- even more junk, hawking weak energon and glued-together goods from shabby stalls piled on top of each other like a gallery full of wares.

It was like the tacky, neon-drenched backstreets of Shinju on Cybertron, but without all the optic-bleeding light and tourist-trap charm. The only light came from LED set into scavenged devices, and only a few stalls were lucky enough to have working lanterns. Steps up to and paths between the stalls followed little rhyme or reason, yet the natives moved between them as seamlessly as water in a stream. Never before had 'organised chaos' been so fitting a term.

Compared to Denny's modest scrapyard on Earth, Junkion was a testament to just how bad obsessive hoarding could get. Fixit had calmed down by now, but Strongarm couldn't move. Not because her leg was almost being swallowed by the fragile floor. Not because

Because there was so much mess. So… so much mess…

Everywhere she looked, anywhere she looked, it wouldn't go away. It only got worse! But even more terrifying than the impossible piles of trash was the realisation that the Riotjack was the only ship in sight. Either others were parked behind those awful mountains, or swallowed up by the planet's ever-growing landfill. Or, most likely, Junkion just didn't get many tourists.

Which meant they were all alone.

All alone in the mess.

 _So much of it._

"Ow!" Strongarm yelped and grabbed her elbow, where she was certain something just stung at her protoform. There was no hole nor dent in the armour, and nothing nearby to catch herself on. She glared down at Fixit.

"Did you just..?!"

He averted his optics and somehow passed on a shrug through her. " _Someone had to snap you out of it_."

She snorted, tenderly rubbing where he shocked her. "That's rich comin' from you…" He went into hazy states as often as an Insecticon queen laid eggs, but _she_ didn't electrocute _him_ to bring him back!

…Mainly because she couldn't. That didn't annoy her more than the fact that his tactic actually worked. It was just garbage. None of it was hers, none of it had to be swept up or put away. None of it was her business. The only kind of bot a place like this attracted was Wheeljack, who was still looking around like a kid let loose in a candy store (a phrase Russell so often used to describe his own dad. She wondered how well Wheeljack and Denny would have gotten along, if they'd known each other).

Filch must have counted among that type; before Strongarm could even decide if it would be safe to let the Corvicon loose, she was soaring off far ahead of them in search of an ever-elusive 'shiny'. Thunderhoof didn't even try to restrain her, not willing to risk his servos being wrenched off in an attempt. He gave an exaggerated shrug in response to her glare, but before she could cuss him out Wheeljack had already set off after Filch, expecting everyone else to follow automatically.

"Dad, wait! What about the ship?!" She had to trot after him, leaving the boarding ramp behind as it retracted back into the Riotjack's belly.

"Don't worry about it, or Rosanna." He looked over his shoulder, but didn't stop walking. "No-one's gonna touch it. We're on the very edge of the vendor section, and no-one touches anything that isn't theirs here. It's like an unspoken rule. The city is just up ahead; that's where all the starscrapers are."

Strongarm followed the vague horizon he was pointing to, yet all she saw was the continuation of the twisting road that lead them past the endless parade of stalls. "I don't see any 'scrapers'."

Wheeljack laughed. "You'd be surprised how much is hidden behind those mountains. It's kinda like a free-for-all; scavvies go out to the hills and dig as much as they can. Whatever they find they sell, fix, or upgrade. It's more of a hobby than a business for most of them."

Strongarm took another glance at the tiny shapes scurrying up and down those huge spires, some even tumbling down only to scramble right back up, and failed to see how anyone could do it for _fun_. Then again, just because she couldn't imagine why anyone would want to be a Decepticon didn't stop bots being one. She shook her head, and found that Wheeljack had finally paused to glance over one of the stalls. All she saw were a load of broken wheels loaded on spokes, but whatever Wheeljack saw in their wobbling spin had him transfixed.

"How does a place like this even _get_ so much junk in the first place?" she asked, thinking out loud and wondering if Fixit knew the answer. Wheeljack shrugged, still eyeing the curious set-up.

"Gravity. Orbital mechanics. Dumb luck. There's probably a good explanation but no one really knows what it is." He spun one of the wheels, and suddenly all the others burst into creaking, squealing life, triggered by the movement of the one before it. It served no practical purpose, and didn't even look all that pretty for how useless it was. Yet Wheeljack grinned like he was staring at a work of art.

It wasn't her kind of place, but she could see him being very happy here. She wondered how often she'd get to visit him, when he finally admitted he was getting too old to be star and bar hopping. He pushed himself back upright, and pulled Strongarm close with a servo around her shoulders.

"If you only learn one thing from me, sweetie, let it be this." He held up a digit, then directed it towards a cart right in front of them. "Don't drink _any_ energon from here. Trust me, you don't wanna know where it comes from…"

A weedy mech was spilling out thin fuel from a nozzle into flimsy glasses covered in grease. Bots would drop something, credits or small scrap bundles, onto the cart with one hand and scoop up a glass with the other, barely even noticing how filthy it was as they drank.

"I'll take your word for it," she said through a grimace. Suddenly she was wishing she _had_ brought a snack along with her, especially if Fixit and his damned Fibres ended up trying to drain her dry again. Synchronisation wouldn't help if she was running empty.

"Pfft, rip-offs." Thunderhoof had decided to catch up with them, so desperate to voice his opinion on Junkion's market. "Back on Cybertron I'd move stuff twice as good as this for half the price, _including_ thebribes!"

"That's all well and good until someone catches you red-handed," Strongarm pointed out. With how much he bragged about how good he was at breaking the law, it was a wonder how he wasn't caught a lot earlier.

"I told you, I got sold out!" he insisted. "My operation was _air-fraggin'-tight_ until that damn Rat-" Before he could protest his innocence to the smallest jury in the galaxy, Strongarm was summoned by a very persistent seller wagging a bottle in her direction.

"Oi, you! You with the eyes on the collar! Get over here a klick, I've got somethin' for ya'!" Against her better judgement, over she went dragging Thunderhoof behind her. The seller must have been drinking a lot of the local energon from how greasy his smile looked.

"Look at your man, now back to me," he instructed. "Now back at your man, now back to _me_! Sadly, he isn't me. But if he stopped using rose-scented cleaning solvent and switched to Oil Spice he could _smell_ like he's me." He presented the solvent bottle with a flourish, a digit threateningly balanced on the spray-trigger.

Strongarm sighed. "He isn't my 'man'." Escaping the pitch was easy with Thunderhoof threatening the guy right back.

"The Pit you callin' 'rose scented'?! I'll have ya' know I ain't washed in over three vorns and I ain't 'bout to start now!"

" _That stuff gives my protoform a rash,_ " Fixit confessed. _"Please don't ever use it."_

"Unless you go and find a mech to bond to, I think you'll be safe," Strongarm told him, scanning for Wheeljack in a crowd that seemed to effortlessly blend into their tarnished surroundings. Even with his stark white paintjob, it took a good few runs round until she spotted him eyeing some engine parts beyond any kind of use.

"Dad, didn't you say the city was further down? Isn't that where we should be going?"

He waved off the insistent taps on his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah, but we can't just _walk_ there. We need someone to _take_ us there."

"…I don't get it."

"Unless you live here, you're gonna get lost tryin' to find anything by yourself," he explained, straightening up with cracking joints. "Hence why we need a native to-"

" _Oi_! Who's the whacka who let this yobbo loose?!" Above the cries of desperate hawkers and haggling, one mech's furious outcry rose above them all. Literally, since he was standing on top of the ridge that the market passed through. Towering even above that was the familiar screech of a Corvicon. She was trapped in a crude set of restraints, barely held down by the two mechs behind the one making his demands.

Wheeljack suppressed a laugh as he rose a hand with not a hint of guilt. "That'll be ours. Didn't think she'd get so far away."

Filch's captor narrowed his dark optics as he slid down the wall, barely slipping on the junk jutting out of his path. He skidded to a stop just in front of Wheeljack, challenging him now that the whole market had gone quiet.

"Bloody thing only tore through an entire day's dig just to get _this_!" He brandished a hollow tube, some kind of aluminum can. "What'm I 'sposed to do with this?! Get some string and call my mates off on Gigantion?!"

Wheeljack studied the shiny thing, then the anger carved into his challenger's face. "Don't be silly," he said. "You don't sound like you have many to talk to."

The can crumpled in the mech's hand as he forced it into a tight fist, flattened metal spearing through his fingers as he tried to threaten Wheeljack. "Listen here, drongo, you're near cooee'a losin' that bloody tongue if you don't-" His optics went blank in less than a nanoklick, his anger swept away by some invisible wind, yet his vocaliser didn't skip a beat.

" _TRY THE NEW BIGGER MAC, ONLY 99p AT McWANOLDS_!" It didn't sound like his voice, didn't sound like anything that could be recognised. The reverb was too deep to be from his own mouth, his optics too distant for him to even be standing there. No, not standing… frozen. He couldn't hold his body up if he wasn't in it. Something else was keeping him upright, the same thing speaking through him. It terrified Strongarm, but Wheeljack could barely stop himself from laughing.

"Come again?" he asked, clearly mocking.

" _GET A McFLORRY INCLUDED IN YOUR MEAL FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!_ " The response was, ironically, as robotic as the last one. Strongarm was still baffled, even more so when everyone else went back to work as if nothing had happened. Even his companions, having descended themselves with Filch strung between them, barely acknowledged it with little more than an awkward glance.

"Sorry 'bout that," the tallest said, handing his half of the restraints over to Wheeljack. "Keep your pet on a leash next time, savvy?"

Wheeljack nodded, untangling Filch from the loose chains as the tall one lead his comatose, babbling leader away. The other mech lingered though, hopping from one ped to the other as he eyed Wheeljack. It wasn't a suspicious look- Strongarm honestly didn't know what kind of look it was. She was still trying to piece together what the Pit she'd just seen.

"Ay, chief," he eventually said, once Filch had been dealt with. "That your hauler over there?" He chucked his chin towards the path they'd been walking from, where the peak of the Riotjack could still barely be seen.

"Might be," Wheeljack answered.

"Give ya' 200 credits for it."

He got a bark of laughter for his audacity. "No deal. But we'll give you five if you take us to whoever's in charge around here." Wheeljack had all five in his palm as he offered it. The mech peered at them intently, before snatching them up with a nod.

"Beaut. Follow me." He pocketed his fee as he walked, so similar to Wheeljack in expecting everyone to follow behind. Strongarm did so blankly, while her sire tugged Filch along with a length of chain tethered from around her neck to his wrist. She pecked at the dull glimmer of the chain, but otherwise let herself be pulled. Thunderhoof fell in behind them when he noticed the procession, giving up on whatever fight he was itching to start next. It seemed he'd missed the whole spectacle, or like everyone else he just didn't care about it.

After almost losing her boyfriend to a crazy Decepticon in disguise, finding armour that could talk back to her, being told to hunt down biggest threat to the universe since Megatron, discovering a zombie-drone on the moon, having to fight with half her body on display, finding out the galaxy's biggest pop star was a double agent, getting her boyfriend back only to then find out both his parents were Decepticons, was she finally losing her damn mind?!

"You look a little freaked out, sweetie," Wheeljack said. She came very close to punching him for such a severe understatement.

"Why…" So many 'whys', all fighting tooth and nail to come out. The one that emerged victorious just managed to slip past the more important ones.

"…Why do they _talk_ like that?"

Wheeljack laughed, and she could hardly blame him this time. "If you think that's bad, you should see who's on top. I'll explain it along the way."

 **xx**

 _Fanfic is dumb but McDonald's might sue me so if anime can get away with calling it dumb things to avoid copyright then so can I. Keeping the crossover realistic!_

 _So remember what I said about there being additional factions yet to be introduced? Looks like Steeljaw has links to one of them. And they know quite a lot about Fixit's type…_

 _(While figuring out Junkion's world-building I quickly realised it functions almost exactly like a Minecraft server, including bad memes in chat. Make of that what you will)._


	30. Rust Tinted Goggles

"…And that's why they go into those trances sometimes," Wheeljack finished. "The satellites are the only way they get news from outside, so everyone's processors are tapped into the frequencies. But some frequencies can overlap or accidentally get picked up, and their brains get flooded with a lot of junk info. Mostly it's old commercials from other planets."

Strongarm just shook her head, too boggled to even try and question it. "Makes about as much sense as everything else I've heard up till now. Fixit, if I start trying to shill buffer pads, bleed me dry so I shut down."

Fixit squeezed around her nervously, unable to tell if she was being serious. " _I'll, uh, do my best. Though these guys make my tics look normal."_

"You haven't had as many of them since we joined up, though," Strongarm said. "It's only when you get nervous."

Fixit's optics fell flat in as close to a shrug as he could manage. " _I suppose…_ "

"And don't think I'm gonna visit you here if you're gonna be trying to sell me on pyramid schemes every five klicks!" Strongarm moved back on to Wheeljack, who was trying to wrangle Filch again with the rusted length of chain around her beak and neck.

"Nah, I ain't gonna tap into the satellites like them," he said, barely breaking a sweat as he tugged the giant Corvicon back to the ground. "I'm gonna get the Jackhammer the best radio on the market, and I'm just gonna park it somewhere in the scraplands and live outta it."

"You _already_ live out of it, though," Strongarm pointed out, ducking as Filch tried to snap at the empty air in front of her.

"But at least I'd have somethin' outside that isn't just empty space, or a view of a thousand other outposts," Wheeljack argued. "Boredom don't exist on Junkion. Everything you've seen, Strongarm, from the garbage in the sky to the trash on the ground, came from light years away, from places that probably don't even exist anymore. Where else in the universe can you get stuff like that?"

Strongarm was about to say something clever, something like 'a museum' or 'the library' since he'd never visit either of them, when something else scurried across her ped. She jumped back on reflex, kicking out against the light tapping that dared touch her with a very undignified yelp. She caught only a glimpse of the creature, so tiny that its tail was barely as thick as a fiber optic stand, before it wriggled into one of the piles lining the street and disappeared. Just a nanoklick later a pair of younglings barreled past and went running after it, giggling as they tunneled through the trash in pursuit.

"Ramrats." Wheeljack noticed that she'd stopped and almost scared her all over again by appearing over her shoulder. "They're easy to miss, and not the worst thing you can find 'round here." He left her with that chilling thought as he kept up with their scruffy guide and dragged their captive along.

Strongarm took one last look at the younglings, fearlessly diving into the unknown after a pest, and curled her lip. "As long as there's no Cons hiding anywhere…"

"You forgettin' the one we got leashed, or the one laggin' behind?" Wheeljack called back, reminding her that they did indeed have a dangerous mech to drag along. She looked back to check that he wasn't trying to start another civil war, and was pleased to see he was only fighting against his own curiosity. They'd have to be careful not to lose him in the garbage.  
"I said 'hiding'. Thunderhoof couldn't even hide himself on a dwarf planet." She caught up with her sire in a few long strides, but only because he was forced to stop. Their guide had taken them to the end of the winding, steel-shingled path, where it started to dip sharply down beyond a cobbled-together gate.

"You'll have to leave your, uh… pet outside," he said, pointing to Filch as she preened. "Not much room for anything to fly around in there."

Wheeljack gave Filch a skeptical look, but since he couldn't think of any quick way to smuggle her in he let go of her leash. "Try and not break anything that ain't already broken," he pleaded, though no one knew if the Corvicon could even understand them.

"Shiny!" she chirped, shaking her wings once before taking off and diving into the cluttered landscape. Strongarm had the feeling they'd either hear another complaint about her soon, or never be able to find her again.

"We really should drop her off somewhere," she said, "before she causes even more damage." The Riotjack might have been tougher than the Jackhammer, but it still wouldn't survive the kind of chaos Filch was fully capable of.

Wheeljack didn't seem concerned as he turned his back on the Corvicon's fading form. "If we pass by Garrus 9, we'll dump her in an escape pod," he joked, already passing through the gate while Strongarm was trying to keep Filch in her sight. Thunderhoof watched after her too, with a scowl.

"Oh, so she gets free run'a the place but I try and smack some sense into a scammer and you try'n wrench my horns off!" He tugged on one side of them, replicating how she dragged him away from the vendor he was threatening to pile through to the planet's core.

"Filch is too dumb to properly escape," Strongarm told him, noting how she didn't just take to the stratosphere and instead delighted in diving through the trash. "You, on the other hand, could just threaten anyone into letting you on any starship."

For a nanoklick. Thunderhoof seemed proud that he was so persuasive. "It's stuff like that that makes me think ya' still don't trust me," he said, almost fooling her into thinking he was hurt.

"Primus forbid," she deadpanned. "Now let's get a move on. The sooner we get out of here, the better." She had to jog to catch up with Wheeljack. Thankfully he hadn't gone very far beyond the gates, but in just those steps the entire landscape of the planet seemed to change before her.

The gate was more of a boundary marker than a way of keeping bots out; the occasional hills of shrapnel and plastic rose sharply into mountains around it, and those mountains were painstakingly hollowed out to house some kind of intricate network of platforms, walkways, all threaded together into a maze that creaked and groaned above and below her. The sprawling market that had greeted them before was like a village fair in comparison. This must have been what passed for a city on Junkion, a steel-and-rust jungle threaded together by gantries and vine-like cables.

The structures within the jungle were more like burrows than apartments, smaller spaces tunneled out of the landfills to house anything from couples to entire families. Mechanimal carcasses with empty optic sockets hung outside the homes, their fuel slowly dripping into containers.

Watching a half-broken down mech sip from one of the containers through a tube, Strongarm now knew why she shouldn't drink the local energon. She quickly followed Wheeljack away from the residential area to stop herself from purging.

Primus only knew how their guide managed to find his way through the madness, but he soon stopped before a fractured piece of wall pocked with rot. There was a crooked panel at its side, hanging off thick cables and blinking out a random light show through its broken buttons. He pressed one of them, and bellowed down a stalk drooping over what looked like the remains of a speaker.

"Oi, Nancy!"

A nanoklick passed before the speaker exploded into static and promptly emptied the tanks of anyone around it. _"The Pit you want, Detri?!"_

"I got a mob'a scavvers here. They dropped out the sky and wanna yabber with ya'."

" _They seem shonky?"_

"Nah, they just stood out like a shag on a rock."

" _Right-o. Send 'em up."_

Listening to them was like trying to decipher an alien language (were these things really the same as Cybertronians?!); but whatever was said between them, 'Nancy' must have been approved. The fractures in the wall opened up with groans of protest, old paint cracking and flaking off in a small shower as a narrow doorway appeared.

"That's my job done. Good luck to ya'." Detri nodded farewell as he disappeared back into the city maze. Strongarm wondered just how the Pit they were supposed to find their way back out, but that was the least of her problems. Through the doorway she could see a vague outline of stairs leading up into the darkness, and Wheeljack had already been swallowed up. Thunderhoof would have been gone, too, if he'd been able to fit his antlers through the narrow space. It took several attempts for him to realise that he had to turn his helm so they went vertical and didn't jam against the edges of the passage. How ridiculous he looked only made Strongarm feel slightly better about venturing into such unknown territory. On Velocitron, she always had somewhere to escape to, optics to keep watch. Here, every corner hid danger. One wrong step could mean stumbling into a pile of razor metal, or being buried under all the junk. Only the natives knew where everything was… so only the natives knew how to stay alive here.

...Fixit's paranoia must have been rubbing off on her. She could see his optics in the dark, like blue spotlights, and it was clear he was trying not to look at what was ahead. Thunderhoof was blocking most of it anyway, grumbling more and more as the cramp in his crooked neck worsened.

And then he stumbled out into flickering light, almost landing right on his horns. Fixit stopped Strongarm just before she joined him, and she was able to carefully step down from the steep drop to the steel floor below.

"Mind the gap!" Whoever said it either didn't know the warning came too late, or said it precisely because it was too late. Strongarm left Thunderhoof to pick himself up as she and Fixit studied what they'd just emerged into.

It was a wide room with a low, sagging ceiling, lined with tables piled high with dissected electronics and machinery. The amount of hoarded junk in the corners was like a microcosm of the chaos outside. A mismatch of lights hummed feebly overhead, but most of the light came from a huge window at the only empty wall that looked out onto Junkion's endless wasteland. The Riotjack could be seen, surprisingly not too far way.

Stretched out before it, Nancy looked up from the jumble of circuitry in her lap like she'd just felt wind on her cheek. Something covered her optics, like two circular visors for each one, and she pulled it up to rest on her forehelm. She didn't look too impressed.

"So, you're the buggers messin' up my view with that ugly-aft ship out there." She had the same, strange accent as every other bot Strongarm had come across, but despite that she carried the unmistakable air of authority, like an Academy instructor. Strongarm almost felt the urge to salute.

By now Thunderhoof had finally righted himself, and he wasn't so easily intimidated. "Don't think _we're_ the reason that it looks ugly," he sneered back.

Nancy blinked, and let out a laugh like a rod being dragged over the ridges of a tin can. Somehow it managed to echo. "Ha! Fair dos." She tossed her work aside and uncurled from her lazy recline across the window seat- no, not a window, it was literally just a hole in the wall. Did these bots have no regard for safety? How the Pit were they all not extinct?!

Strongarm's breakdown was cut short by the arrival of another bot- not Wheeljack, who she'd just noticed was nowhere to be seen. This too was a mech, half showing around a wall of junk, and his chipped orange plating marked him as another Junkion. Filaments sprouted all over his chin and top lip, quivering as he looked between Strongarm and Thunderhoof. "Ya' never said we'd have company, Nance!"

"Cause I didn't know we would 'till a klick ago," Nancy said, hands on her waist where it wasn't cluttered with soldering irons, hammers and wrenches hanging from her toolbelt. "Ya' fixed that arm yet?"

The mech's confused expression went blank, and he looked at the shoulder hidden from view. "Gettin' there." He looked at them both again, this time focusing on Thunderhoof. The 'Con didn't appreciate the attention.

"Ya' wanna get your optics somewhere else before I punch 'em out?" he asked. There must have been some kind of communication barrier in place though- like Nancy, he only laughed at the thinly veiled threat.

"Ha! I like that one." Then he disappeared again behind the trash, followed by the sound of metal being showered all over the ground.

Nancy shook her helm. "'Scuse the mess and my sparkmate. 'Fraid we don't get much company. Now-" She took another seat, crossing her legs as she perched on a bent frame of steel. "Who the Pit are you lot?"

"I'm Strongarm. This one is…" She trailed off as she gestured to Thunderhoof, not knowing how Junkion felt about Decepticons. His insignia wasn't much of an issue on Velocitron since he was in custody of an Autobot police officer, but here she didn't have much authority. And it would have ruined any lie she'd try to tell.

"He's a… prisoner," she said. Just because he didn't have stasis cuffs on didn't mean it wasn't true.

Nancy pulled her goggles back down to peer at Thunderhoof with a smirk. "Was gonna say, didn't think I'd ever see Bots and Cons travellin' together. You gonna cause any trouble, _prisoner_?"

"Couldn't even if I wanted to, ma'am," Thunderhoof said coyly. Seemed like Wheeljack wasn't the only one who took a liking to Junkion- so much so that he'd apparently gotten lost in it already. Strongarm resisted the urge to go snooping around for him, standing restlessly with Fixit not helping her stay still.  
Their host took a long swig from a tall glass of energon, while Strongarm tried very hard to not think of what creature she got it from. She drank it so fast that she burped before she could speak.

"I'm Nancy. My 'mate's Wreck Gar." She threw a thumb over to where he had appeared from and caused a mini avalanche.

"Charmin'! _Try the new Beryl Burger meal with a free side of mercrackers, only at Hack in the Box_!" His voice was muffled, either because he was digging through the trash or because of that pesky satellite interference. With her goggles on, it was impossible to tell if Nancy was rolling her optics or not.

"Now that we got names sorted," She rubbed her digits together, peeling off a sheen of machine oil on her palms. "The Pit you wanna speak to me for?"

Strongarm knew exactly what she wanted to ask, but it wouldn't come out. At the worst possible time, everything overwhelmed her at once. She wanted to access a satellite to track a frequency that could lead her- not just her, but innocents like Wheeljack and Steve and Rosanna- right into Decepticon hands, or even worse. Perhaps even worse than Megatron himself.

She wasn't trained to deal with Megatron.

She wasn't even trained to deal with mechs like Thunderhoof.

She looked over to him, finding him utterly bored. For the first time, she doubted he could really be as useful as he claimed to be. He could be planning how to stab them in the back with every nanoklick she let him stick around.

Fixit stopped her from fainting, barely, and Wheeljack saved her from having to speak around the rust in her throat.

"Sorry, got a little lost on the stairs." Wheeljack somehow knew to avoid the steep trap as he suddenly appeared from the stairwell. Strongarm was jolted out of her impending breakdown by the urge to yell "where the frag have you been" at him- but Nancy beat her to it.

"Well, well…" Nancy stalked over to him, while he couldn't stop himself from grinning. "You got a lot of nerve showin' up here after all this time, Wheeljack."

"Didn't think you'd remember me, Nancy. How's Wreck Gar?"

"The usual, his squawk box's on the fritz again." The supposed animosity between them dissolved as quickly as it was put on, leaving Strongarm even more confused than ever before. Thunderhoof leaned in to ask her if they knew each other.

"Obviously," she whispered back. "Not like I knew that, though…"

"Haven't had many Cybos since ya' last came," Nancy went on. "Well, there was that _one_ group'a drongos… called 'emselves Scavengers. Real original. Had this big idea to dig right in deep to the core and become millionaires. What happened to 'em again, Gar?" She called over her shoulder to where her sparkmate was hidden away.

"Buried in that scrapfall when the purple one set off his wonky gun-gun-gun." Wreck Gar's vocaliser staggered in a monotone at the end. "Gun! Fun! _FUN FOR ALL AT SIX LASERS OVER CYBERTRON!_ "

"Ah, I remember now… his fault for not takin' care of it." Nancy nudged Wheeljack in the side. "He'd'a done a lot better wi' one of your blasters."

"What, you mean this old thing?" Wheeljack pulled out some kind of mechanism from his subspace, which Nancy swiftly snatched away from him.

"What'd I tell ya' 'bout scannin' through my stuff!" she scolded, while Wheeljack laughed with a shrug.

"Just wanted to make sure you still had it after all these centuries," he said. Nancy scowled at him, but it didn't last long as she dropped her aft down onto a table.

"What the Pit're you even doing here, Jackie? The Wreckers finally kick ya' out?"

"They wish they could get rid of me. Nah, just gettin' dragged across the galaxy by my girl here." He finally acknowledged Strongarm by wrapping his servo around her shoulders, pulling her close like proud fathers usually did to violate personal space.

Nancy wrenched her goggles off, then pulled them back on, then off again as her optics darted between the two of them.

"Ya' never said you had a daughter!" She sounded more offended at that than at anything else he'd done since he walked in.

"Well, it _has_ been a while," he tried to excuse, as Nancy marched up and pulled at Strongarm's face to see just how similar it was to his. Pinching her cheeks, tilting her chin, shining a bright light right into her optics, and leaving greasy marks wherever she touched. She almost made Fixit go into battle mode with how uncomfortable Strongarm was. When Nancy finally finished her examination, she had an indecipherable smile.

"She's got your optics. Hopefully that's all she got from you." She pocketed her flashlight while Strongarm tried to wipe her face clean. "Don't tell me the 'Con's family as well."

Wheeljack barked. "If he was, I would'a disowned him." Then he looked around, mostly behind himself. "Speakin' of which, where'd he go?"

Strongarm hadn't noticed he'd disappeared, and for a terrifying nanoklick she thought her worst fears about the 'Con had come true.

"Ah, slag." Nancy slapped her forehead. "Wreck Gar's probably tinkerin' with him." Sure enough, there was a curse that could only have been strung together by Thunderhoof that came from Wreck Gar's direction. Whatever was being done, it wasn't going smoothly.

"Like how he 'tinkered' with that one ramrat to try and teach it tricks?" Wheeljack asked with a smirk. The two laughed while Strongarm was still trying to recover from the panic that just peaked in her spark.

"Uh, Nancy, about why we're here…" She trailed off.

"Yeah? Spit it out, already," Nancy ordered. This time she managed to get it over with.

"We've been following a signal that seems to have passed through one of the satellites in Junkion's orbit. We need a closer look at them to see where it came from."

Nancy quirked an eyeridge and stroked her chin. "Issat so? Lucky for you, all our satellites are automatically linked when they get trapped in orbit. But…" She raised a digit to stop them getting too excited. "I can't let just anyone go'n mess with them cause they ask to. Not even you, Jackie."

" _Especially_ not you, Jackie!" Wreck Gar called out, while Thunderhoof swore again.

And just like that, the trail had come to an end. Strongarm didn't know if she should feel disappointed or relieved. She didn't have to choose between them, because Nancy hadn't finished.

"Tell ya' what, though." Nancy propped a knee up on a barely standing stool, draping an arm over it. "You sort somethin' out for us, and I'll hand over the receiver logs for all of 'em. Should be 'nough to fins what ya' need."

The logs would remove the need to go to each satellite individually and scan their records, which would have taken at least a vorn. "Sounds... fair enough." Strongarm was cautious until she knew exactly what they had to do. "What is it you need help with?"

Nancy shrugged. "Nothin' major. Just a little infestation problem."

"Infestation of what?" Wheeljack asked, sharing Strongarm's hesitation.

Nancy shrugged again. "Scraplets."

" _WHAT?!"_ Strongarm and Fixit had simultaneous outbursts, and Wheeljack's came with a prelude of spluttering.

"You call _that_ nothing major?!" Strongarm's almost-breakdown was nothing compared to how she felt now. "Those things can chew through Titans in less than a decacyle!"

Nancy hardly seemed phased by either Autobots' disbelief. "Don't spit the dummy, sheila. S'hardly the end of the fraggin' world. The nasty wee bitzers just keep gnashin' all our loot, and almost took Wreck Gar's servo off."

"Almost got it back on, though!" Wreck Gar pointed out.

"You'd have it on quicker if ya' didn't keep puttin' your solder on everythin' with a wonky leg!" Nancy protested. Strongarm and Wheeljack were still wondering if her request was serious, hoping that it wasn't. She seemed more confused by their fear than unsympathetic.

"Hey, chin up," she said to Strongarm. "With the kind'a firepower your dad's got, should be a piece'a piston." She trailed off as she leaned her helm down towards her shoulder, the pose of someone listening intently to their commlink. Her optics flickered in the reflection of her goggles, and she yanked them back down a final time.

"Eesh, I gotta dash." She slipped between them like they weren't even there, hanging around the stairwell only to give them instructions. "Wreck Gar'll show you where to start when you're ready. Oh! Try and keep 'em in one piece, and gather _all_ of the bodies. There'll be a lil' somethin' extra in it for ya'-" Her vocaliser stalled suddenly, and erupted into a salesman's voice as greasy as her hands. " _LIKE A BRAND NEW HOLOBIKE FROM MICHELIN MECH! INSURANCE FREE FOR THE FIRST FIVE VORNS_!"

Then she shook her helm hard enough to almost knock her goggles off. "Oof, sorry 'bout that. Ta'ra!"

"Uh, wait a minute, how're we supposed to-?!" By the time Strongarm thought to ask, she was speaking to empty air. Not even Wheeljack seemed to know what to say.

"...What the Pit just happened?" she asked again, this time to anyone who could answer.

"Sounds like you just got us stuck with pest control duty."

Thunderhoof appeared beside her with that usual smug tone, practically begging for a slap. "I wasn't asking _you._ Where did youeven go off to?!"

He grinned as he pointed to his helm. "The orange guy wanted to put joints in my horns. See?" He twitched an eyeridge, and the corresponding antler rose up at an angle. His other eyeridge did the same with his other antler until both were vertical like some kind of beacon on his head, and he brought them back down at different speeds.

"No more breakin' my neck tryin' to sneak into places!" he boasted, flapping the horns up and down like wings. Strongarm wondered how much easier they'd be to break off now, but she couldn't test it just now.

"Ah, that Nancy…" Despite them facing certain doom and even more certain bite marks, Wheeljack didn't sound so panicked anymore. "She hasn't changed a bit. Wreck, on the other hand, looks like a different bot every time I see him."

"I can hear ya', y'know," Wreck Gar said, finally re-emerging from his working corner to slap his working arm around Wheeljack.

"No matter how much of you rusts away, your audios are never gonna stop workin'." Wheeljack laughed, knocking a fist against the other mech's helm.

"Even if they do, can always just fix 'em up!" Wreck Gar assured. "Speakin' of which… I still gotta rewire my servo. Gimme a few more klicks and I'll be right as rain." He made a sign with his grubby digits as he retreated, and with her father finally not distracted Strongarm could at last ask him;

"Dad…. What? How? The Pit is going on?!"

Wheeljack had the decency to not laugh at her this time. "Sorry, sweetie. Should'a told you I knew Nancy, but I wanted it to be a surprise. Didn't mean to put ya' on the spot like that."

"Who is Nancy?" Strongarm was tempted to ask why she had such a strange name, but it was in the back of her mind. "Is she… important?"

Wheeljack shrugged. "Depends on what you mean by that. But I've known her and Gar a long time. We can trust them…" Again, he explained as best as he could manage.

According to Wheeljack, and despite Thunderhoof scoffing the entire time, every single Junkion was packing a gun somewhere on them, and he was the reason for it. He didn't go into how he knew Nancy and Wreck Gar, not so much the 'leaders' of Junkion as the first ones to call it home, but he was happy to brag about how he singlehandedly saved the planet from Decepticon occupation. He supplied the weapon system blueprints, and they built it all themselves.

It explained why theft wasn't much of an issue, at least- it only took one witness to have an entire town pointing a scope at you. Still, Strongarm couldn't believe that it was as effective as it looked. Who decided what the laws were? Who really enforced them? Where were the bots like her, meant to keep it all in check?

The answer was, there were none… maybe that's why Wheeljack liked Junkion so much. Everyone and everyone else around them was their own enforcer. She didn't know how to feel about that. She couldn't even tell how Fixit felt so she could steal some of it and claim it as her own. He tried to send something along her skin, a reassuring tingle, but it was only a token effort. For all the power these Kamuicons had, they really weren't much use outside of things you could punch away.

"Better than new!" Wreck Gar jumped out to brandish his patch-job proudly. "Right, let's get a move on 'fore those scraps eat the entire planet."

"How many Scraplets we talkin'?" Wheeljack asked, with that panic creeping back into his voice. Whether he could sense it or not, Wreck Gar didn't answer right away.

"…Let's just say these ones multiply real quickly. Which is why we better hurry."

Strongarm let the others go ahead as she tried to convince her spark to calm down. That was the easy part. Convincing herself to follow them… her mind was too flooded with horror stories of scraplets to think of any reasons. If she went, they'd eat her alive. They'd surround her, swarm her, never let her go. They'd chew through Fixit, then-

Wait. Fixit.

He wasn't just metal. These Life Fibers… if they couldn't be cut, or shredded, or torn, then how could scraplets eat through them? That must have been why Fixit wasn't scared. He hadn't told her why, because he wanted her to figure it out herself!

Or maybe he _had_ told her somehow, without actually saying anything. Is that what synchronising meant? Knowing things without knowing them? She'd only know more about it if she kept on going with Fixit wherever he took her, including into a scraplet swarm.

That was how she convinced herself to follow. If she didn't, Fixit would have just made her. She was glad he didn't have to, and she suspected he was glad too. As she left, a shadow flew past the hollowed-out window behind her; squawking proudly with a beak full of ramrats, and other things slightly too big to be just rats.


	31. Home Run Away From Home

"We think it was a... er, breedin' operation gone outta hand," Wreck Gar explained, barely stumbling as he led them into Junkion's wild wastes and passed various ramshackle barriers. "See, scraplets give a lotta energon out and help clean the place up a little, but all it takes is one loose screw to bring the whole machine crashin' down."

"Uh huh." Wheeljack was only half listening as he tried to clear some sort of path for Strongarm and Thunderhoof to follow."That's what ya' get for lettin' 'em spawn in the first place. Just point us where to start."

"Right here." Wreck Gar had stopped on the peak of a trash mound, not to let them catch up. Strongarm braced herself for the view as she hiked through the planetfill, wondering why Wreck Gar wasn't scared of getting swarmed so out in the open like that. She panted when she finally reached him, taking a deep vent before straightening up…

And finding absolutely nothing.

It was a valley of compacted garbage, as if a mighty hand had reached down and scooped some up only to fling it upwards so it became trapped in cluttered , other than that, it was identical to any other untouched part of Junkion.

"I… can't see anything." Strongarm wasn't the only one confused; Wheeljack was waving his hand in front of his face to make sure his optics weren't lagging.

"Ya' will in a few klicks," Wreck Gar said ominously."I better dash. Good luck!" He was halfway back down the hill he'd just dragged them up before Strongarm could ask what he meant by that.

"Is he always like that?" she asked Wheeljack.

He shrugged and kicked over a stack of tin cans as he tried to descend upon the empty valley without drowning in the debris. Thunderhoof had beaten him to the punch, already waist-deep in secondhand rust.

"Depends on what show's playin' in his head," Wheeljack replied."One time he got stuck on a gardenin' channel and wasted half a gallon of energon on waterin' rubber plants."

Strongarm rolled her optics, before trying to scan for a more reliable way down. If there really were scraplets lurking about, she didn't want to be standing around with a target on her back- even if she supposedly wouldn't face the wrath of the swarm. "Fixit, you see anything?"

" _I see Thunderhoof digging a crater for himself, but other than that…"_

That settled it, then. She'd just have to get up close and hope she didn't stab herself on some ancient disease-contaminated shard of Primus-knows-what. Just how the Pit did these psychos not die from infection on a daily basis, anyway?! Were they too stupid to die or something?

Whatever the answer, you had to be a special kind of stupid to just go shoveling through anonymous junk with your bare servos. Which explained a lot of what she suspected about Thunderhoof as he picked his way to an early death via the Rust Plague.

"The Pit are you doing over there?!" she exclaimed, careful to stay out of concussion range as he threw his finds over his shoulder to make room for more digging.

"Down in Tarn," he paused his picking with a grin as he fished something out, "the first thing ya' learn is not let anythin' go to waste."He sounded so proud, baring the fruit of his labor as it dangled from his hand. Strongarm was not impressed, mostly because it looked like a discarded pair of underarmour. Would have explained the dumbaft grin on his dumbaft face. Dumbaft. Strongarm started searching in her own spot just to properly ignore him.

" _It's kinda funny,"_ Fixit mused. _"I was a janitor on the Alchemor, and even halfway across the galaxy I still am one._ "

"Says the one who was really an ancient mythical thing all this time," Strongarm pointed out with a sigh."Even if you weren't, you're not the one having to actually sort through all this trash." She cautiously tilted up a large steel panel, thankfully finding nothing lurking underneath, and sighed again. "But you're right. Somehow, when I heard about there being a dangerous threat to the galaxy needing taken down a peg, I didn't think we'd be literally picking up someone else's mess on the way there."

"Don't act so high and mighty, sweetie," Wheeljack called out, as usual without anyone asking for his input."I remember when I'd take ya' to the beach planets and you'd spend all day playin' in the sand."

"Sand can't kill you in horrible unknown ways, Dad!" she yelled back, resisting the urge to hurl whatever was in her hand at him. It was only an old spring- it would have bounced right off him anyway."Besides," she went on,"we only got a breem on each planet because _someone_ ignored the fact that we were still a blacklisted species at the time!" Strongarm was convinced that Wheeljack was the sole reason it took so long for the organics to trust Cybertronians again, even long after the war had ended.

"Yeah, but the looks on their faces as they ran us out was so worth it." Wheeljack chuckled to himself while his daughter sulked was set on trying to find these blasted scraplets; the sooner they were gone, the sooner she'd be gone too.

But Wheeljack persisted in distracting her.

"Ah, you're gettin' worked up over nothin', baby. Come over here, I wanna show you somethin'."

Strongarm groaned, abandoning her search just to humour her sire so he'd leave her alone. He pulled her in close and pointed up towards the empty space above them- what little of it that was visible through the junk that even bloated Junkion's atmosphere.

"Look up at that patch of stars. Notice anythin' strange?"

Strongarm scoffed, but peered in close anyway. They were stars, white amongst black. Nothing else to be said… not at first glance, at least. Looking in closer, there were slight anomalies among the stars. Light clustering around invisible edges instead of beaming right past it, as if it was warping around some kind of barrier just to reach her optics…

"…That's a black hole," she realised. For it to be so close to affect the light from stars that must have been millions of light years away… suddenly catching a new Plague from somewhere amongst the rubble was the very least of her worries.

"Not just any kind'a black hole," Wheeljack said. "It's practically orbiting this whole star system. Has been since before Wreck-Gar and Nancy even showed up. They think it's where all the trash comes from in the first these bots can survive livin' next to a black hole all their lives, I think we can survive bein' trashbots for a lil' while."

He hadn't said how close it was to Junkion. Strongarm wasn't sure if she wanted to know. "Alright. Point taken." She shrugged her sire's arm off her shoulders so she wouldn't have to look at that not-so-distant event horizon any longer.

"Uh… guys?"Behind them, Thunderhoof sounded shaky. Maybe he'd found a familiar face somewhere in the junk. There was a fluttering sound that Strongarm assumed was his internals vibrating from shock, or whatever it was he was feeling.

"I…I think I found 'em."Strongarm turned to see what the Decepticon's next horrible find was- and came face to face with the swarm surging down from the sky. A wave of metal and insidious purple lights, munching and whirring and seeking out anything to latch onto.

She barely got out the order to get down before both Thunderhoof and Fixit's will were throwing her into the could hear them, _feel_ them rushing past overhead, like a bristling metal torrent slicing through the air. She wrapped her hands over her helm and braced herself for the stings against her back, the buzz of their teeth chewing through her protoform like acid through rust. Fixit constricted himself so tightly around her that she couldn't move even if she tried, either to stop her from attracting them or simply because he needed something, someone, to hold if they theoretically couldn't chew through him, being mobbed by so many sharp teeth was bound to hurt.

When the hiss of the swarm had died down, Strongarm eased her optics open as she slowly tilted her helm up. There were no welts on her back, nor scratches on her fingers. Other than some dents from the impact of diving low, she was completely unscathed.

She had Wheeljack to thank for that.

"Get… your stinkin' fraggin' maws… away from my baby!" The Wrecker stood covered in scraplets gnawing their way along his frame, undaunted as he shot plasma rounds at the retreating wave. He would pause in his volleys only to knock aside a scraplet that came too close to his chest, though it would quickly pick itself back up and latch onto an untouched patch of armour.

Thunderhoof wasn't doing any better, trying to take on the other side of the swarm. His only built-in weaponry was a pistol in his right arm, and his horns. Neither were any good when your target could flick away in the blink of an optic.

Strongarm decided to keep low while she tried to piece together the scene- Fixit wasn't about to let her stand up anyway. The tide of scraplets were retreating… but they weren't fading from view. They were circling back for another attack, snapping and screeching-

…But scraplets didn't screech. That sound was far too familiar to be from them. Through the gaps in the haze of metal, Strongarm swore she could see light reflected off purple…

So _that_ was where Filch had disappeared to. She couldn't tell if the Corvicon was purposefully herding them towards her captors, or if she was just mindlessly chasing them. Neither possibility changed the fact that they were all about to crash into them for round two.

This time, Strongarm stayed standing, only covering her face. The swarm hit her like a sonic boom, hundreds of the things slamming against her frame and even more streaming past to attack the other two. She could feel sharp teeth against her protoform, trying to tear through to it… and thankfully failing. The biters eventually fell off and buzzed away when they realised they couldn't tear through Fixit's guise. Just as well she hadn't gone full synch- with so much of her protoform revealed like that, they'd easily pick her down to her skeleton. No, she couldn't take full advantage of Fixit's abilities here if she wanted skin to spare.

The other mechs, however, were like a buffet to them.

"How the… Pit are we… supposed to get them like this?!" Thunderhoof tried to swat them out of the air as they left jagged bites on his armour. Wheeljack gritted his denta as he tried to peel them off, kicking any who tried to crawl up his legs.

"Junkions have it fraggin' easy…" he growled."Scraplets won't hurt 'em cause they're so caked in rust!" He lost his balance, sprawling on the cluttered ground and frantically flailing for anything to fight off the tide about to swell over chucked whatever junk he could find at them, luring them away with the promise of an easier meal. "Strongarm, try and distract 'em with the scrap!" he bellowed."If we put up enough of a fight, they might go for the easy target instead!"

Strongarm doubted it would work with such a large swarm, but she couldn't come up with anything better. She ducked down and scooped up as much junk as she could carry. "Hey, slaggers! Pick on something your own size!" She hurled her servos towards Thunderhoof, managing to draw a good bulk of the glitchspawn off and giving Thunderhoof a chance to curbstomp them out.

"At least _Filch_ is enjoying herself," he grumbled. The Corvicon was still circling the massacre site, swallowing whole any stray scraplet she managed to catch up with. She _could_ have made their job a lot easier, if any of them knew how to get her to listen. As it was all she preferred to toy with her food before finishing it off, capturing it and throwing it upwards so she could try and catch it before it fell. Sometimes she threw too hard and the pest wouldn't come back down…

"You thinking what I'm thinking, Fixit?" Strongarm asked with a cautious smile.

" _I wouldn't be very good at my job if I wasn't_ ," he said back. She snapped a hand into her subspace to pull out her weapon, the pole that she'd salvaged from Earth's own junkyard, and scanned the pitted area for anything else like it. There was something like a baseball bat (as Russell had called them) sticking out to Wheeljack's left, but he was so focused on getting the things off his back that he'd completely ignored it.

"Dad, bring out that bat to your left!" she called out. Wheeljack slammed a scraplet against his knee to break its tiny neck, only to have another three replace it as he faced her.  
"Huh? Why?"

"I need you to hit them towards me!" There were so many flitting about, like a grey snowstorm, that all he had to do was swing to hit at least four of them. Wheeljack didn't seem to understand her line of thinking, but he pulled the bat free anyway and readied it.

"Get ready!" Strongarm signaled, and Wheeljack caught a whole line of them in a single sweep. They came rushing towards her, and in her panic she only managed to catch one of them on her pole. It cracked hard against the metal, and went flying overhead with energon streaming past it.

Well, it worked. But she'd need to hit a lot more of them. "Again!" she called to Wheeljack. Biting his way through the stinging pain, Wheeljack obeyed and scooped up another three of them. She was ready this time- each of them slammed against her pole as she swung it and followed the arching path of their predecessor. As they disappeared from sight, she thought of a way to make it even faster.

"Thunderhoof, get over here! I'm gonna put those horns to use for once!"

As stupid as he seemed, the Con was surprisingly quick on the uptake, and he could hardly resist the opportunity to show off how much tougher he was than anyone else there. While the swarm was distracted by a shower of scrap, he would take position and charge through them, head down and horns positioned (thanks to Wreck-Gar's modifications) to shovel up as many of them as he could. When he reached the end of his charge, he'd swing his head and throw them all towards Wheeljack, who'd transfer them to Strongarm, who'd then send them towards the stratosphere. Two batters ensured that the pests were hurled with enough force that they wouldn't come flying back down. Even Filch helped out in her own way, keeping them all contained to the scrap valley with her vigilant flying and serrated claws.

Despite her namesake, Strongarm's servos were aching within ten klicks, constantly having to pull back and reach forward to keep up an efficient pace. Despite that, it was a lot more fun than the baseball she saw back on Earth looked. They couldn't catch every scraplet, or hit all that came towards them, but it was a lot faster and less painful than taking them out one by one. The swarm thinned down to a flock, and then barely a threat. When it came down to the last few stubborn stragglers, Wheeljack just picked them up off his frame and hurled them towards her like softballs while Thunderhoof took revenge for his pitted horns by spearing them through the ones still twitching.

"I think you can rest now, sweetie," Wheeljack chuckled, though she was already collapsed on the floor with her numb arms limp on either side. She hadn't even activated the Life Fibers, yet she felt even more drained than after her fight with Twirl.

"How'd I do, Fixit?" she panted, rubbing her aching shoulder.

" _By my calculations… you hit them hard enough to reach escape velocity,"_ he said, in a way that told her he was frightened by the fact.

"Which means…"

" _It means that right now there's a few hundred scraplets floating aimlessly in space. Assuming they don't get swallowed by that black hole up there."_

Strongarm's optics widened, and looked to the sky above. Sure enough, there were more than a few scraplet corpses splattered on the orbiting junk and even more of them floating further away.

"Huh. Let's just hope Nancy is happy with the few husks we managed to save." She forced herself onto her peds and kicked one of the bodies, rolling her servo in his socket to make sure it didn't fall off. "What's she wanting them for, anyway?"

 **xx**

"A feast for everyone!" Even if Nancy's sheer presence hadn't managed to summon every Junkion within walking distance, the opulent display of scraplet corpses and the rows of energon siphoned from them would have done the job. "C'mon, slaggers, don't be shy!"

"I call dibs on the cranial fuel!"

"Please, the legs are where all the flavour is!"

"Hey, quit cutting! I was here first!"

Everyone else had to fight, rather brutally, for a place at the buffet, while Strongarm got a place of honour right next to Nancy and Wreck-Gar. She would much rather have just went right back to the ship, but Wheeljack was the only one who knew how to search the satellite logs they'd been given. That left her and Thunderhoof to keep up the diplomacy.

"Nice idea shootin' em into space, Strongarm," Wreck-Gar praised, nudging her still-aching arm. "The cold kept the energon nice and fresh, and still all in the frame!" He was the one who co-ordinated the quick retrieval of the floating bodies. One of them was plated before her, pocked with ice while its broken jaw hung wide below hollow dead optics. It wasn't that it was alive and nibbling just a few breems ago that put her off it- it was the fact that she was convinced it would snap back to life if she touched it.

"Ehhh… thanks, but I'll pass. I... filled up on Velocitron."

Wreck-Gar snorted. "Pft. Their energon's only good 'til the next pit stop a mile away. That's how they scalp the natives, ya know. But suit ya'self." He snapped up her serving for himself, wrenching the jaws open to get at the energon inside. Strongarm and Fixit both agreed to look away, but the sight next to them wasn't any better.

" _Thunderhoof!"_

The Decepticon paused his savage dismemberment of the carcass only to shoot her a confused look. "What? I earned this fair'n square! You're just picky."

Strongarm scoffed in disgust. She'd never be _that_ desperate for energon, and neither would Fixit. Filch, meanwhile, was busy working her way through a whole pile of scraplet remnants, gulping down their entire frames after mangling them in her claws. It was the first time Strongarm had seen her in her robot form... if not for the Decepticon crest she could have passed for normal.

There was another nudge on her shoulder, this time from Nancy at the next seat over. "Turns out that birdie'a yours is quite the scavva' too. Dug out that whole pile by herself." Not only did Filch bring back her share of remains, there was a good amount of metal not eaten away by rust mixed in. Even Strongarm had to admit that she'd proved herself useful, and she gave a terse nod as Nancy sucked down a gulp of energon.

"Think she'd like ta' stick around?" the junk queen asked. "We could sure use a digger who knows what ta' look for."

Strongarm blinked under furrowed eyeridges. "I... I'm sorry, but I can't possibly allow that."

"Why not?"

"B-Because, she's… she is a wanted Decepticon _criminal_ ," Strongarm explained, utterly lost at how it couldn't be obvious from the Corvicon's emblem. "And because of that, she needs to face justice for-!"

"Strongarm." Thunderhoof had finished his share and stood up, a heavy hand on her shoulder as he towered. "Lemme talk to ya' for a sec."

Strongarm eyed his hand suspiciously before shrugging it off. He lead her to a shadowed alcove away from the bustle of the feast, though she wasn't stupid enough to go completely out of sight with him around. "What is it now, Thunderhoof?"  
The Decepticon crossed his servos tightly over his chest. "You ever see what Filch got locked up for in the first place?" he asked.

She blinked again, not understanding the point. "No... but it must have been bad for her to end up in a stasis pod."

"'Must' have been. Sure, let's go with that." He sounded amused for some reason as he moved his hands to his hips. The stance made him look even larger. "Alright, lemme ask somethin' else; you ever think of why all Corvicons happen to be Decepticons?"

"Cause they're thieves!" Strongarm answered, barely having to think. "It's _hardwired_ into their sparks, that's all they're meant to be!" Just as an Insecticon was hardwired to follow its hive, or a Seeker was hardwired to crave the sky. That's just how it was- was he trying to lure her into a trap or just waste her time?

He didn't look amused anymore. He just shook his head with a sigh.

"...And I thought you were 'sposed to be smart."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Strongarm balled her hands in impatience, though Fixit was prickling at her like when he usually disapproved. "Look, just tell me what the Pit you're trying to say."

"You said it yourself." Thunderhoof shrugged. "It's hardwired into their sparks. They _need_ to steal, and no one knows why. No one ever thought to find out why cause no one cared. Just brand 'em a 'Con, throw 'em in stasis and forget about 'em, that's how Autobots like to do things." His servo shot out from the alcove, towards the Corvicon who sat grinning through her energon-binge. "You think Filch _wants_ to be what she is?" he asked. "You think anyone _likes_ being a criminal?"

Strongarm rolled her optics. "Primus, don't tell me you're trying to defend _yourself_ -"

"Ain't nothin' to do with me," he interrupted, with so much force that she was left speechless. "I've done what I've done and I ain't gonna apologise for it. What I'm sayin' is that the only reason Corvicons like her are all in cells, the only reason we even have a _name_ for what she is, is cause Autobots don't want anyone _difficult_ runnin' free. They don't want to try and fix her. They don't want to make her useful. They just want her locked up." He advanced on her as he spoke to drill his point home, until their chests were practically touching. If what she felt through his EM field was his spark, it was raging inside his chamber. For once, she was actually scared of him.

And then he sighed, his rage deflating as quickly as his optics lost their burning glow. "What I'm sayin' is... here, she _is_ useful. She doesn't _need_ to be fixed. So why take her away from the one place she can be happy?"

Strongarm felt her mouth hanging open, but she couldn't make anything come out of it. What the Pit was she supposed to say to something like that? She wasn't trained on what to do when a Decepticon actually spoke sense for once.

"If you're still on the fence, think of it like... rehabilitation," Thunderhoof offered. "Even _you_ know she ain't gonna get that in a stasis pod. Like what you're doin' with that 'Con back on Earth, the Dinobot."

"Grimlock is on _probation_ " she pointed out _,_ "and only because he helped us capture one of his own."

Thunderhoof cocked an eyeridge sceptically, knowing she was still just dodging his point. "What about Steve? I don't see ya' 'bout to drag him into a cell anytime soon."

"The case with Steve is completely different!" she insisted, trying to fight her way out of the corner he'd backed her into. "He didn't ask to be a drone under Megatron's command-"

"And Filch didn't ask to be a Corvicon," he countered, already smiling with the smugness of a mech who knew he'd just won the argument.

...Dammit, now she knew how Wheeljack felt, and that meant she was definitely in the wrong. She turned on her heel before she got the urge to wipe that grin off his face, marching back towards Nancy with a new answer she wished she'd thought of herself.

"Nancy. I've decided... if you really want her to stay, then we'll leave Filch here."

Nancy grinned, but first swiped a hand over her mouth to try and clean away the energon dripping down it. "She'll be right at home here, I'll make sure'a it."

Strongarm tried to return her amiable smile, though all she could see was Thunderhoof's own smug expression. If he was standing behind her, she swore...

" _Strongarm._ " A sudden crackle from her commlink distracted her from reliving the common fantasy of punching the Con's spark out. _"I've finished the log scan,_ " Wheeljack said. _"You and Bambi better get back here._ "

Strongarm clicked off with a sigh of relief. "Thank Primus..." And thank Nancy for giving them their next lead (though she declined her offer to take some scraplet bits on the trail with them).

 **xx**

As Wheeljack had asserted, the Riotjack was miraculously untouched in their absence. Strongarm had half expected to find it as a shrine to cosmic rust, or a skeleton with all its plates repurposed into the foundations of new city. But she guessed her sire had to be right at least half of the time. She found him reclined in the ship's control room, with Rosannna and Steve nowhere to be seen. Must have been resting in one of the other rooms, and she could hardly blame them for it.

"Well, Dad?" Strongarm ran up to the console he must have been using to search. "We get a hit?"

"…No," Wheeljack answered.

"W... w-what?"

"The signal's too scrambled," he said matter-of-factly. "Can't trace it. Where's the other Con?"

"Never mind that! I… is there any way to decode it?" she asked frantically, trying to find the results within the ship's cluttered files. "Are you _sure_ you checked the right one?"

"I'm positive, Strongarm," he sighed with a shrug, "and I'm just tellin' you what I found. Nothin' we can do about it."

Thunderhoof peered at the console, as if he'd be able to find some miracle solution before Strongarm's frantic scanning could. "So we came all this way just to hit a dead end?" he growled.

"Fraid so, Bambi. Slag happens." Wheeljack had already resigned himself to failure while Strongarm was still desperately trying to avert it; scouring the screen ahead for anything that looked like what was inside Rosanna's processor.

Fixit was able to look a little closer, and he whispered to her. ' _Strongarm... these aren't satellite logs. I've seen them a lot, when I did maintenance on the Alchemor's comm relay. I think Wheeljack's hiding something."_

Strongarm froze, only for a nanoklick, before she turned on her sire who still sat back in his chair like he was on vacation.

"…Let me see the logs for myself, Dad."

Wheeljack's optics snapped wide, though he quickly tried to hide it. "Why?"

"Maybe you missed something," Strongarm argued, "or maybe Fixit could find a clue. Cause I am _not_ giving up after all the light years we've crossed." She crossed her servos, staring her sire down for the second time. With Fixit's wide optics also accusing him, it wasn't long before he caved with a regretful sigh.

"Alright, I... wasn't totally honest. It _did_ bounce off somewhere else… but I'm not takin' you there."

"Where did it go, Dad?" she asked.  
"Strongarm…"

" _Where did it go?_ "

Wheeljack bit his lip and rubbed the back of his helm. "To a planet… called Charr. The only place in the galaxy that Decepticons can't be touched."

Thunderhoof perked up immediately, including his horns. "Charr? I thought that place was just a ghost story for sparklin's!"

Strongarm had never heard of it, too focused on smothering Decepticon threads at home to research those off-world. But Fixit seemed to know it, as he tightened around her. That was all she needed to spur her back into action.

"Of course Airachnid would have something to do with a Decepticon hotspot… we should get there as soon as-"

"Absolutely not." Wheeljack's was out of his seat in a nanoklick, his larger frame blocked her path to the ship controls. "The only place you're goin' is back to Earth."

"What?! Dad, you can't just-!"

"Yes I can, Strongarm!" He was already at the nav panel plotting the course back. "When I said I'd help you, I thought it meant finding where this glitch is and tellin' whoever needed to know. I did _not_ sign up for deliverin' you right into a nest full of Decepticons!"

"Ah, come on, chief. We ain't _all_ bad," Thunderhoof interjected, for once being spared a long-suffering glare from Strongarm since she was busy trying to wrench her sire onto the floor.

"Dad, turn this ship around right now or… or I'll-!"

"Or you'll what? Jump out the airlock? Call Magnus to tow this thing back? Either way, sweetie, you ain't goin' anywhere near that place. Not as long as my spark is still glowin'!"

"Uh, guys…?" No one had noticed Rosanna pelt into the room like there was a sparkstalker after her, optics welling with coolant as she shivered from an invisible draught.

"Dad, this is _my_ ship, this is _my_ mission, and I am _ordering_ you to-"

"I am your sire, Strongarm, and if I say you ain't goin' somewhere then you AIN'T. FRAGGIN'-!"

" _STRONGARM!_ " Rosanna's yell was cracked, followed by a desperate sob that wrecked the singer's vocaliser. Strongarm forgot her anger in an instant when she realised the small femme was crying.

"Rosie? What's wrong?"

Rosanna sucked in rapid gasps of air to try and calm her spark down, but even then it took her several attempts to say anything.

"There's… there's something wrong with Steve..."


	32. Monsters In The Closet

Something was wrong with Steve, indeed.

"He… just started raiding everything," Rosanna explained. "I don't think he could even hear me." She said nothing more as she kept herself far back from the cargo hold where he was caged; curled in the very corner, surrounded by scattered husks of drained energon cubes. There was a dull purple glow leaking from him, dribbling down his chest as he shielded his face between his legs.

Strongarm shivered as she approached the sealed door, slightly surprised that Fixit didn't try to stop her. He must have been just as curious as she was, hanging loose on her as she tapped a digit on the door's viewport. Steve didn't stir, lost in his energon hangover, so she took a deep vent and unlocked the controls.

"Steve? You… alright in there?"

It was like someone had stabbed him with a prod- Steve jolted up as if he was on strings, gasping with the effort, but only briefly before he lurched and hit the floor face first. As he tried to crawl towards her, Strongarm could see the purple staining his face and smearing across the ground in his wake.

"Strongarm… I'm… I-I… I feel…. c-cold… h-h-hungry… can't stop… can't stop…" Static choked his words at first, before morphing into a vomit of growls as his faceplates were torn apart by something emerging between them. It was like a claw on the end of a long tendril, snapping blindly as it wound its way towards the open door…

"Strongarm, get back!" Wheeljack grabbed her and tackled her out of the way as Thunderhoof slammed a fist on the door controls, and Rosanna screamed. The door hissed shut, pneumatic hinges trapping Steve- if that still _was_ Steve- inside as they clamped tight. Even through the thick steel the growls within were as clear as Rosanna's terror. Even Thunderhoof wasn't able to keep up his tough mech act any longer.

"What… the Pit was that?!" The Decepticon edged backwards along the wall away from the cargo hold, as if the hold itself was a sleeping beast he was fleeing from. Rosanna whimpered, lending her meager frame to Strongarm as she picked herself up off the floor.

"Do you… think it's some kind of virus?" the singer whispered.

"It's worse than that," Strongarm replied as she furiously dusted herself down."Might even be contagious." She turned to Wheeljack, who was still recovering from his heroic efforts. "Are there any medics on Junkion?"

Wheeljack scoffed as he violently shook his head. "Forget about medics, we need to get him off this ship! Dump him somewhere so no-one else gets infected-"

Strongarm grabbed her sire's arm, the one that kept jabbing towards the closed door. "I don't care if he's got the cybonic plague, we are _not_ dumping _anyone_! Even if you don't like him, he's our one direct lead to Airachnid. He's the only one here who can tell us what she might be doing!" She released his wrist, though it still hovered there in the air as her sire looked agape at her.  
"So answer me, Dad," she asked through gritted denta," _are there any medics on Junkion_?"

Wheeljack's hanging arm slowly lowered, and he sighed as he shook his helm. "None that can help him."

"What about Knockout?" she pressed. "Do we have any way to contact him?"

"Yeah… yeah, actually. I managed to get the slagger's private comm number just before we left Velocitron." Strongarm didn't want to know how he managed to pull that off when she wasn't looking. She followed him back to the control room while Thunderhoof and Rosanna stayed down to keep watch over Steve. In turn, she watched Wheeljack put the code into the comm panel and waited to hear the medic's affronted voice with a sigh of relief loaded… but she never released it. If this was the right number, he was stubbornly refusing to answer. Then again, she really shouldn't have been surprised. If Knockout was willing to desert the Decepticons, he'd be just as willing to leave anyone else up slag creek if it suited him best.

"Primus fragging dammit…" Strongarm slammed a fist against a wall, wishing it could tear through the fabric of space and clock the medic right across the jaw.

"We're out of options, Strongarm," Wheeljack said, abandoning the dead commline and returning to the pilot's seat. "With the right angling, we could shoot him outta a pod and into the black hole-"

Strongarm turned her frustration back on her sire, shoving him out of his chair before he could do anything to the engines and taking his place in it. "I'll shoot _you_ out if you don't shut up!" she warned, curling into the seat so she couldn't be easily dislodged and trying to force some epiphany from her processor. "Think, Strongarm…"

She didn't know the local planetary layout, or any medical procedures, or even what was wrong with Steve. No one did. What if it _was_ the cybonic plague, or red rust, or something so ancient that it had no name or cure? Whatever it was, if it got out and infected the rest of the ship... she'd be responsible for all their deaths. But if it _wasn't_ contagious, she'd have doomed an innocent mech. More than innocent; if what she knew of Vehicons was correct, most of them didn't even realise what they were doing during the war. Steve was as much a victim of the Decepticons as any Autobot.

She couldn't give up on him. Especially not when he could help against Airachnid.

"Please tell me _you_ have something, Fixit," she groaned. The Kamuicon squirmed around her, as if he wasn't sure if he should answer. Thankfully, he did.

" _If I remember right… there might be a facility nearby,"_ he said _."An old medic outpost."_

Strongarm pulled her hands from her face, leaning in to hear Fixit better. "What's it called?"

" _Delphi. It's on Messatine."_

Wheeljack, who didn't even want to try and reclaim his seat, looked up from his resigned pose against the wall. "Delphi? That rings a bell…" He checked the ship's navigation logs, cross-referenced with the intergalactic atlas database. "Huh. He's right. It's listed as a neutral medhub. Must have been used during the war."

"How far is it?" Strongarm was on her peds, renewed hope surging through her fuel lines.

"Thirty klicks on hyperdrive," Wheeljack answered, seizing his chair now that it was free again and plotting the course. "We'll need another ten to clear this system."

Strongarm nodded, holding back a triumphant smile. "Do it. I'll keep an optic on Steve."

"Do _not_ open that door again, Strongarm," Wheeljack ordered. Strongarm rolled her optics as she climbed back down to the cargo bay. There was a hum through the walls that grew louder the deeper she went in, a sustained musical lull that she eventually traced back to Rosanna. The singer was humming to Steve through the bay's vents, an anonymous lullaby that seemed to calm him down. Steve lay spread on the floor like a wounded mechanimal, dull light bleeding through his visor. Thunderhoof kept his distance, arms crossed over his chest with his back against the far wall.

"S…St-Strongarm…" Steve sounded like he was trying to force his voice through a tube no wider than his digits.

"I'm here, Steve." Strongarm placed her hand on the door's viewport, her palm almost covering the whole window.

"It hurts… it burns…" He retched, purging up another stream of the awful purple infection around him. It wasn't entirely liquid, yet it spread around him like a vile puddle.

"Do you have any idea what it is?" Strongarm asked gently. "Or what's caused it?"

"I don't... I…" Steve tried to shake his helm, but it only brought on another coughing fit. If he had a spark, it was as if it was trying to flee his body.

Strongarm felt a tug on her servo, and looked down at Rosanna's stricken face. "Will he be alright?" she asked.

"...I don't know," Strongarm answered quietly, pulling away from the door. "But we're gonna get him to a medic. We'll find out what's wrong with him."

Rosanna looked down, not at all convinced by Strongarm's false optimism. "Where is this medic?"

"Not far from here. Just thirty klicks. Why don't you go check on Nook and Ramhorn till then?" Strongarm suggested. The longer Rosanna spent down here, the more distressed she'd get and the less use she'd be in an emergency. The pink femme rubbed at her servo, but gave a small nod and shuffled towards the stairs. Thunderhoof watched her leave with an indecipherable expression.

As Steve's choking finally subsided, his vents were left rattling through his torn vocaliser. "C-Could you… could you tell me aa-bout… Cybertron?" he asked. "I wanna know… how much it's changed."

"Sure… sure. I'll tell you all about it." Strongarm lowered herself to the ground, with her back to the door. She could feel the cold heavy steel through Fixit's cover. From the timeframe Steve had given, he would have only been disposed for a few decades since the end of the war. Even so, Cybertron had changed so much since then that she didn't know where to start. Did she try to remember what she read in the archives, about the rise and fall of the Predacons and the Insecticon invasion, or what Wheeljack had told her about the Autobots' rebuild efforts?

The real question was, was Steve wanting a story or a lecture?

' _He wants to hear what_ you _think of Cybertron_.' It took her a moment to realise that it was Fixit talking to her, not out loud but somehow directly into her audios. Was he able to read what she was thinking the whole time?! She'd have to talk to him about privacy once this was all over.

"Iacon is ...beautiful," she said, not knowing how else to describe her home city. "The Council Plaza has this massive statue of Optimus Prime, and the other Autobots that fought on Earth. Academy drills would usually be right in front of them, a whole class full of bots who all wanted to be just like them." She fondly remembered sparring in the shadow of Ratchet, the genius medic who kept Optimus and his team alive until the very end. Only then did it occur to her that she was praising the same bots who probably killed legions of Steve's friends, so she quickly changed the subject. "And Praxus... it's like a supernova at night. You get more drunk idiots on the streets than you can count, but no-one minds patrolling it just because it looks so inviting. Crystal City, meanwhile, is like a giant mirror when the sun hits its side of the planet. Seekers hate flying near it."

Steve forced out a question. "Is Vos... still full of snobs?"

"Of course it is," Strongarm laughed, wondering how much things really had changed since Steve could remember. "Haven't met anyone from there I didn't hate in a klick. Most of them won't even talk to you if you don't have wings."

"What happened... to Starscream?"  
That was a name she only dimly remembered at first, but then pinned down as one of Megatron's most treacherous officers yet also, somehow, his second-in-command. "No-one knows," she answered. "He's presumed dead. Though some say Slipstream is just him in a different body."

"Slip...stream...?"

"The new commander of the Energon Seekers. She managed to get a plea deal with the High Council, a few stellars after the war," Strongarm explained. Not the Slipstream that belonged to Fracture (the little slagger must have named himself after the Seeker), _this_ Slip had been around much longer. Strongarm had only ever saw her at the annual Amnesty Festival and over datalinks, but those appearances alone were enough to strike the fear of Daedalus (the Seekers' own version of Primus) into her spark.

Steve coughed again, though it soon became clear that he was actually laughing. "Y'know... she fragged Megatron," he revealed.

"Seriously?" Strongarm sat upright, forced taut with Fixit tightening around her- even _he_ was shocked. Megatron had been touted as such a mythical figure, a demon who named himself after another demon, that Strongarm almost couldn't believe that someone would interface with him. It was like hearing that Optimus did circuit boosters.

"Everyone... knew... about it," Steve assured. "Not allowed... to mention it, though."

Strongarm couldn't stop herself giggling, imagining the mighty Megatron falling for a femme, especially one as domineering as Slipstream. "The Decepticons had drama in the ranks, huh? You'll have to tell me about it when we get you fixed."

Steve went silent for a klick. "What about... the south?" he soon asked. "The Kaon states?"

Just below the Iacon polity lay the infamous southern cities; Kaon, which saw the rise of Megatron from its own pits, and its neighbours which were only known for poverty, pain, fighting and noxious fumes. That was the case back then. Nowadays... well, it was getting better. Slowly.

"A lot of it is still being rebuilt," Strongarm said. "It's mostly the center for reconstructing the rest of the planet, where all the refineries and steel factories are. Kaon provides electrical energy. Tesarus grinds up old steel into new blocks for building. Helex is the smelting hub. As for Tarn... it's kinda like the place keeping all the others together."

Steve went silent again, digesting the news. "I remember... Tesarus," he groaned. "Was built... built..." He trailed off into nothing, his voice lost in a gurgle of purple poison.

"Steve?" Strongarm pushed herself up and watched him twitch on the floor, his visor flashing a dying signal as the vomit congealed around him. His mouth was half open, and the grotesque clawed cord hung limply from it.

"He dead yet?"

Strongarm almost leapt right out of Fixit when she heard Thunderhoof, who had somehow sneaked up on her despite being as big as a gestalt's leg.

"Not dead," she affirmed. "Just resting."

Thunderhoof snorted as he looked through the door. "Probably bored him to sleep with all that scrap 'bout Cybertron."

"He asked me to tell him about it, so I did." Strongarm shoved past him, not in the mood for another debate with the Con.

"Not about all the younglin's still starvin' in Tesarus, though?" he called after her. "Or the torture in Helex? What about how anyone in Kaon is better off blind cause they can't afford to use their own 'tricity?"

Strongarm squeezed the stair railing under her hand, denting the metal as she turned back to face him at the bottom. "Thunderhoof, I could tell you a thousand more horror stories about what goes on in Iacon at night, but I won't. Wouldn't want to _bore_ you." She didn't look back again as she climbed back to Wheeljack. Between her sire and Thunderhoof, she was starting to wish she'd brought Sideswipe along, or even Grimlock. When _he_ was the most tolerable mech on her mind, something was seriously wrong.

Wheeljack craned his head back to look at her as she entered. "Was just about to fetch you. We're five klicks away."

Strongarm blinked; either the hyperdrive was a lot faster than he said, or she'd been down there a lot longer than she thought. Either option suited her just fine.

Rosanna sat beside Wheeljack, her dexisquirrel curled in her lap. "The comm panel's flashing," she pointed out. At the other side of the control suite, one of the lights was indeed flashing.

"Someone's tryin' to make contact," Wheeljack said.

"I got it." Strongarm flicked the receiver switch, and a mech's voice hissed out of the transceiver.

" _This is First Aid of the Delphi Medical Outpost. What is the purpose of your visit?"_

Strongarm held back a sigh of relief, knowing how quickly that relief could be dashed away. "A friend of ours is very sick," she said clearly. "We think it's some kind of poisoning or contamination-"

" _Understood. Please land on the designated area and make your way inside where a medic will assess your condition."_

"Er, we can't really take him off the ship due to his condition-"

" _All arrivals must go through assessment before treatment can begin,"_ First Aid interrupted again. _"Please land on the designated area."_ He closed the channel with a burst of static, and a set of co-ordinates appeared on the transmission screen.

"We'll tell 'em the situation once we're inside," Wheeljack said, logging the co-ordinates after squinting at them for long enough. "This guy must just be readin' off a script."

"…How come he didn't ask for designation?" Thunderhoof had materialized once again, this time at the control room's entrance.

"Primus, I wish you'd stop doing that, Thunderhoof!" Strongarm considered somehow making Fixit's optics go behind her instead of on her chest so she could see if anyone was trying to give her a spark attack.

"They're a neutral outpost," Wheeljack answered. "They don't care if you're a Bot or Con as long as you're too hurt to be a threat."

"But for all _they_ know, _we_ could be rogue Decepticons come to bleed 'em dry," Thunderhoof pressed.

"Speak for yourself," Strongarm said.

Thunderhoof glared at her, but didn't let up. "My point is, how come they didn't check?"

"Maybe our ship signal was authorised?" Wheeljack guessed. "A Decepticon can't hijack an Autobot ship without it getting blacklisted, or without them being seriously undercover. Either way, we're in. I say we just get in and get out, so we can all get back home."

Strongarm knew that after this she had to get to Charr, with or without her father. She'd figure out a way somehow. Maybe Steve could come with her, when he was better. And Rosanna would want to tag along too. Though, right now, she looked terrified. Nook had reverted back to cassette form, as if in anticipation of something terrible to come. And she wasn't the only one on edge.

" _I know I suggested this place, but... Thunderhoof has a point."_ Fixit lay heavy on her, more like a burden than a boon. _"I don't like this, Strongarm."_

Strongarm sighed, not wanting to admit that she felt the same even though Fixit could certainly sense it. "Well, it's not like we have much choice."

The ship rattled as it entered Messatine's atmosphere, with Wheeljack guiding it towards their designated landing zone. "This pet drone of yours better be worth the trouble he's caused," he muttered, though he of all mechs should have known that the trouble had yet to even come.

 **xx**

Even with Chop Shop's attempts at rationing, they were already running low on energon. Kickback didn't take much, as scrawny as he was, but his Minicons only got more ravenous by the cycle. Without energon, he couldn't fuel himself _or_ his comm unit. No advice from Mum, or eavesdropping on Steeljaw.

He was almost starting to miss Twirl. At least winding her up would distract him from the aching emptiness of his tanks.

"Stop gnawin', Lefty." He swatted at his disengaged left arm, who kept scraping his teeth along his front leg. "That's how you get chipped plates."

Lefty hissed up at his brother, and reluctantly returned to Chop Shop's servo. The Minicons were more like compartmentalized armour cover than limbs on a tiny gestalt, as most bots suspected Chop Shop of being. They could only carry away his whole limb if he allowed them to; otherwise they just left the limb bare. They all had a mind of their own, but few of them dared to defy Chop Shop's will. He was the big brother, after all. _He_ was the one who carried them all to the finish line, and they all knew it.

That never stopped Lefty from whining, though.

"You're not goin' anywhere," Chop Shop protested as he tensed his frame, knowing Lefty wasn't the only one anxious for Kickback's return from scouting (with Chop delegated to guarding their cluttered excuse for a camp). "He'll be back when he's back, and if he ain't got energon with him we'll just-"

Scatter, his right leg, vibrated in warning. He'd felt peds through the ground, somewhere in the forest… Chop Shop had the Minis on his arms open their jaws wide, electricity crackling brightly as he scanned them all around him in a wide arc. Kickback was too light for his approach to be noticeable, so this was someone else. Someone bigger.

"Who's there? Show yourself!" More vibrations, from both Scatter and Parker, his left leg. _More_ than one of them. There was a very nearby crunch of twigs snapping beneath metal, and something emerged from the trees like it was taking a pleasant stroll.

"Relax, spider. No Autobots around here." This one raised his hand in greeting, the Decepticon insignia proudly branded on his chest with a long horn protruding from his helm. He looked like Kickback's embarrassing Ladybug doll.

Chop Shop only stopped himself from bursting into laughter when he noticed that he wasn't alone; three other mechs emerged close behind their leader, each thankfully less ridiculously looking and also baring the Decepticon brand.

"You're Chop Shop, aren't you?" one of them asked, as they all formed a loose semi circle around the spider. "The partial organic captured near Regulon Four?"

Chop Shop didn't lower his hands, ready to strike at any who came too close. "Whos' askin'?"

"We're escapees, same as you," the horned one replied. "I'm Saberhorn. We all represent Glowstrike."

"Glowstrike?" Chop Shop couldn't tell if he should have heard that name before.

"The only bot on this dirtball who knows what she's doing," someone explained, pointedly letting him know that yes, he _should_ have heard of her. "Anyone who's interested in staying out of their stasis pod for much longer is following her orders."

"Uh huh." Chop Shop's raised eyeridges betrayed that he wasn't impressed. "And what does that make me, then?"

"Perhaps you should come see her for yourself," Saberhorn said, a dangerous smile complementing his face and the sharp shard attached to it. "If you've survived this long alone, you'll be plenty useful to her."

Chop Shop shook his helm as his Minicons hissed internally. "Not interested."

"You misunderstand." Saberhorn's smile narrowed as his helm dipped down, forcing Chop Shop to stare down the knife. "We weren't asking."

They'd surrounded him, so quickly that he didn't even notice until his Minicons were digging claws into his nodes. Rack, the one that covered his torso, was constricting his spark. He was asking permission.

' _Not yet,'_ Chop Shop answered. _'Not for these slaggers.'_

"You're makin' a big mistake, conehead," he warned, glaring at Saberhorn as the glorified purple unicorn shared a laugh with his friends.

"Says the one who's hopelessly outnumbered?" Saberhorn asked.

Chop Shop closed all four eyes as he let his arms fall, letting himself laugh at the irony. "Glowstrike doesn't keep you 'round for your processor, does she?" He turned to face the two mechs behind him, noting that their weapons were trained at his chest. They were expecting to be aiming at that level.

"If you were able to count, mate, I think you'll find it's the other way 'round," Chop Shop continued. "There's four of you… and five of me."

Then he dissolved, in a shower of red metal and yellow lights. The hail of gunfire whistled hot in the air above his Minicons as they scurried low across the ground, each one heading to a different target. Electricity hissed hot in her jaws as they snapped their mandibles eagerly. Chop Shop could track each one mentally as Rack carried his torso, and his spark, off to relative safety. The mechs were so confused by his disappearance that they didn't even realize what had happened until electric bites sank into their peds and ankles, and their legs were swarmed. The mechs fell helplessly to the ground, dazed by their wounds and still trying to figure out what had happened. Clearly they hadn't done much research on their target beyond his capture records. Rack had circled back around the fight, waiting for the right opportunity to dive in with his larger body, looking for purple armour among the throng…

He found it, but Saberhorn wasn't down.

"Hold it!" He had Scuttle by the legs, dangling him over his horn. "Call them off, Chop, or your little buddy gets skewered!"

All the Minicons froze. They could feel Scuttle's own terror amplified through each of their sparks. Terrified, lost, forgetting all plan of attack, they retreated back to Rack who in turn retreated to reforming Chop Shop. The empty socket of his right shoulder throbbed as his four wide optics watched Scuttle struggle.

"Don't do it, Saber…"

Saberhorn laughed again, crushing Scuttle's legs even more in his grip. "I don't see how you can stop me."

"I'm warning you…" It was more than just a warning. It was a plea to his other Minicons, to stand down as they all screeched for action.

"Worried he might bite me?" Saberhorn asked, digging himself even deeper into his grave. "Rest assured, I'll do _far_ worse to him."

The Minicons were gnawing at his processor.

" _Save him, Chop Shop. Save… our brother…"_

" _Need to let go… need to get out…"_

" _Save him! Kill them! Do it_ _ **now**_ _!"_

He could feel the energon they'd gorged rushing into him, a flood of their rage and fear and that one, unified thought that echoed like an atom bomb; **how dare he touch us.**

This was what they wanted… what _he_ wanted…

He pressed his claws into his palm, deep enough to pierce the skin.

"Now, if you're done wasting our time, we will happily escort you to Glowstrike. She'll decide what do with-" Saberhorn would have first noticed that his mechs hadn't gotten back up, even though they weren't being besieged any longer. Not because they were so wounded they had to stay down, but because they were too scared to move.

Because of the monster in front of them.

"Ch… Chop Shop?"

Spurts of blue. Holes in his skin. Energon, blue and boiling, erupting from the gaps in his mind. His optics were sightless, seeing nothing but a red web that exploded across them in an intricate honeycomb that unraveled the more it laced around his bulging body. He snarled, but not from pain as his armour shattered from the strain. Under the gurgle of his energon cascading down his body, a mech suicidal to be close enough could hear him speak.

" **We told you… to** _ **let him go**_ **."**

Saberhorn couldn't move, not even when the rain of energon splattered across his armour. Only with great effort could he flick his optics, and then he saw the Minicon in his grip. The creature swelled under its plating, red disappearing under its swollen protoform while more red bled through as thick turgid strings. It was also about to snap his entire hand off at the wrist, with mandibles now sharpened to an edge that could have pierced Primus.

"R-R-retreat!" Saberhorn threw Scuttle as far away as he could manage, scurrying backwards on his aft before gathering the strength to stand back up and run. "G-Get back to base while he's…!" If he finished that thought, whatever he assumed was happening to Chop Shop, no-one else heard it as he crashed back into the trees. The rest of them had fled long before their leader did.

Chop Shop would have chased him down, chased them all down, would have torn his protoform from his struts, fed upon his tanks and gulped down his organs… but a voice stopped him. A voice in the haze. Which Minicon was it? He couldn't tell, couldn't recognize it through the static… everything went black very quickly after that.

A hand on his cheek. A slap on his cheek. Several of them, wrenching his neck side to side.

"Chop Shop! Wake up already!"

He grabbed the offending hand, holding it tightly by the wrist before slowly opening his lower optics.

"…Kickback?"

The Insecticon's antennae lay flat across his helm, quivering as if they were electrified, and his optics seemed unable to blink with how they bulged. Chop Shop gave him his hand back, yet he didn't seem to have the strength to move it away. Energon painted the lower half of Kickback's body, a whole puddle of the stuff congealing around Chop Shop. He could feel it stick to him as he tried to move his limbs, barely managing an inch before the joints locked.

"What… the Pit was that?!" Kickback's voice cracked, a trembling falsetto filled with static. "It was like you were… overcharging on boosters or something!"

So he'd been watching from somewhere- and didn't think to step in and help.

"…Never mind that," Chop Shop said. "Doesn't matter. Need energon." His reserves were so low that he couldn't even see his HUD.

"Uh… s-sure. Here." Kickback pulled an energon cube into his field of vision, and the spider's dry lips flooded with saliva. He summoned just enough energy to sit up and crane his neck back, gulping the whole thing down in ten nanoklicks. The sweet fuel drowned out the pounding in his processor and sockets, and smothered the growl of his hollow tanks. His Minicons still slept, but he could feel them gratefully absorbing the energon into their own stores. After what had just happened, they'd be completely spent.

"And just where the Pit were you?" Chop Shop accused, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. Kickback's antennae flicked up once before curling back down flat.

"When I came back, you… well, you looked like… that _thing_ ," he said quietly. "I didn't know what was wrong. I tried to calm you down, and… then you collapsed. Are you sure you're fine now?"

"Don't worry 'bout it." Chop Shop burped, already wanting a second cube. "Won't happen again."

Kickback watched him like a reluctant therapist locked in a room with his patient. "Well, if it does, at least give me some warning next time." He said nothing as Chop Shop went for his second helping of energon from the impressive stack they now owned, waiting until the larger mech stopped to swallow.

"I saw some bots banking it into the forest on my way back… who were they?"

"Dead bots," Chop Shop growled. " _Should_ be dead bots. Mentioned someone called Glowstrike."

Kickback's antennae shot up. "Glowstrike wouldn't happen to be red femme with a serious case of resting glitch face, would she?"

Chop Shop shrugged as he drained the dregs from the second cube. "Don't know. Why d'you ask?"

"Well, that's who I stole all this energon from." Kickback smiled as he gestured to the small hill of fuel. "Let's hope those guys don't go back and notice it's gone."

Chop Shop had to share his smile, creasing his top row of optics. "Guess you're useful for somethin' after all, bug."

"And that's not all I got," Kickback said proudly. "Y'know where she's hiding out? The Alchemor. The _other_ half of it, with a bunch of Minicons fixing it up. Looks to me like she got the same idea as us on how to get out of here."

"Issat so?" Chop Shop examined the empty cube in his hand, wondering just how many bots were gunning for the Alchemor remains, before throwing it aside. "I think we'll have to pay Glowstrike a visit soon. In the mean time, I say we find somewhere a little more sheltered. Those walkin' dead bots are bound to be back at some point."

"Tomorrow," Kickback agreed. "I think we've both had enough excitement for today." The Insecticon scurried off, having made his berth at the edge of the treeline. Even though he hid himself in the undergrowth, the purple fur of Ladybug held tightly to his chest could be clearly seen through the leaves. Chop Shop thought of Saberhorn, and chuckled despite knowing he'd almost revealed himself far too early.

He'd have to check in with Airachnid soon. He wondered if she'd somehow sensed what had happened. Whenever something involved Life Fibers, she _always_ knew.

 **xx**

 _Chop Shop goes beserk ala episode 12 of Kill La Kill. With that many Kamuicons on him, how can ya blame him?_

 _Also, spot the Spiderman reference._


End file.
